Exposure to Crystalline Silica: An Unsolvable Conundrum? Outbreak of Acute Silicosis and Other Diseases in the Context of Renewed Regulations on Silica

• In Event: Risk Government: Putting Industries Back in the Analysis of Science-based Regulatory Tools - II

Abstract

During the last decade, several university hospital teams and national health agencies issued repeated alerts on the risk of reemergence of an old occupational disease (silicosis), and the risk of an outbreak of autoimmune diseases among workers involved in cutting artificial stone. Among other countries, these alerts were issued in Australia, Italy, Israel, France, Spain, and the United States. Workers who cut high-silica content (made of more than 90% silica) artificial stone used for decorative purposes in bathrooms or to produce kitchen countertops are likely to develop rapidly fatal forms of silicosis and diseases such as systemic sclerosis, rheumatoid arthritis or systemic lupus.
In parallel, national health agencies (e.g. NIOSH-OSHA for the United States, ANSES for France) and transnational administrations (the European Commission for the European Union) opened a renewed debate to reduce permissible exposure limit (PELs) values to crystalline silica. Their reflections and public reports all suggest that current regulatory standards of PELs were/are too high to guarantee an acceptable reduction in health hazards for workers.
This new episode of increased visibility of silicosis and other silica-related diseases will be addressed in this presentation as a particularly relevant intersection between: 1) scientific uncertainties about proof in setting health regulations; 2) scientific uncertainties specifically in the knowledge on nosology and etiology of old and « new » diseases; 3) distribution of risks at work in an unequal international division of labor; 4) interactions between private firms, national health agencies, epidemiologists and clinicians.

Author

• Catherine Cavalin, French National Center for Scientific Research (CNRS)