Dr. Gordon Hare

Yes, of course, Clare.

So silicosis is a condition that's been around for millennia.

As long as people have been working with stone, we have had workers inhaling the very fine dust particles or silica particles found in the stone when it is cut and worked with.

It settles in the lung and by way of an immune response,

we get scarring or fibrosis in the lung.

And what happens is with exposure over many years, eventually we get a progressive lung disease, progressive shortness of breath and a lack of an ability for the lung to exchange oxygen.

So it can occur when working with any stone that contains quartz.

Almost all natural stones that we'd work with or that stonemasons would work with would contain a certain amount of quartz.

The difference with engineered stone or quartz countertops is that the levels are very high, approaching 95%.

The other thing that's concerning here is that the processes that we have, or rather the processes that the workers used

when cutting this stone using very high powered tools results in massive exposures being put out into the air.

And as such, these workers are exposed at extremely high levels and they're getting a particularly aggressive form of this disease and at a particularly young age.

So mask as a form of personal protective equipment is generally considered the least efficacious control measure with any hazard or any respiratory hazard.

So what's also really important are factors such as ventilation.

The nature of these businesses is that often they're small or medium enterprises.

They may not have

the funds to invest in their appropriate engineering controls.

And even with that, with appropriate, very high level masks, even with this and when they're fitting well, the nature of these particles is that they can still be inhaled into the lung.

Yes, that's correct.

So it does come in a number of forms and