Should you stroll right into a Costco, House Depot or Lowe’s and order a countertop on your kitchen renovation, the shop will most probably contract with an area fabrication store, teaching them to make one from a subject matter known as engineered stone.
Incessantly advertised as “quartz,” engineered stone is a man-made product that accommodates as much as 95% finely flooring quartz combined with polyester resins and pigments. The convenience with which customers can order it obscures the truth that employees who minimize, grind and varnish those kitchen counter tops chance growing a horrible illness that destroys their lungs.
In California by myself, greater than 550 employees were identified with silicosis brought about by means of this engineered stone – a plague this is completely preventable and for which there’s no remedy. A minimum of 100 of those California employees have passed through or are expecting a lung transplant, an advanced process that extends lifestyles however does now not supply a long-term remedy. A minimum of 30 have died between 2019 and 2026.
We’re an epidemiologist and a doctor, each that specialize in work-related illnesses, who’ve studied the risks of running with this subject matter. We imagine that the surge in silicosis instances is a public well being emergency. However the development is nearly invisible out of doors of California as a result of maximum states don’t but observe the occurrence of the illness.
A modern however bad subject matter
Engineered stone, offered only some many years in the past, has turn into the most well liked selection for kitchen counter tops. It’s tougher however regularly more economical than marble.
When employees minimize, grind and varnish those engineered stone counter tops for a house, billions of very small crystalline silica debris covered with resins and pigments are launched. The employees inhale those debris, and plenty of broaden a critical and hastily innovative type of silicosis.
Like asbestos, silica reasons each breathing illness and lung most cancers. The fabrication employees affected are younger – the median age of the California employees is 46 and the median age at dying is 52. In the event that they prevent running with silica and set up to are living a couple of further many years, they’re much more likely to broaden lung most cancers, kidney illness and quite a lot of autoimmune illnesses than folks and not using a publicity.
Fabrication employees who grind and varnish counter tops manufactured from quartz inhale crystalline silica debris that purpose silicosis.
Earl Dotter, CC BY
An estimated 100,000 employees are hired in countertop fabrication stores within the U.S., and research recommend that 20% or extra of uncovered employees broaden silicosis. Treating it could possibly price hundreds of thousands of bucks in line with individual. Lots of the scientific prices are paid by means of Medicaid and different public help systems funded by means of American taxpayers.
Sadly, many fabrication employees don’t have get right of entry to to healthcare – let by myself experts educated to diagnose and deal with silicosis.
Many huge-box shops advertise quartz over equivalent however a lot more secure counter tops product of overwhelmed glass; those are constituted of amorphous silica, which is way much less poisonous than crystalline silica. Customers are typically now not acutely aware of the provision of this choice.
Ikea stopped promoting engineered stone counter tops in 2025. House Depot, Lowe’s and Costco are nonetheless promoting crystalline silica merchandise as of June 2026.
Emerging instances, rising proceedings
In 2016, all the way through the duration one among us (David Michaels) served because the assistant secretary of work for the Occupational Protection and Well being Management, or OSHA, the company diminished the allowable degree of place of business publicity to airborne silica mud.
Complying with the federal OSHA usual isn’t sufficient to give protection to employees from the extraordinary poisonous results of engineered stone.
In 2019, after the Facilities for Illness Regulate and Prevention reported 18 instances of silicosis from running with engineered stone throughout California, Colorado, Texas and Washington, epidemiologists in California started monitoring the illness amongst fabrication shopworkers. Every yr since, the collection of instances was once upper than the ultimate. It’s transparent that so long as crystalline silica-containing engineered stone is used to manufacture kitchen counter tops, loads of younger employees will probably be identified with silicosis once a year.
Within the U.S., instances of silicosis were reported in numerous different states, together with Massachusetts, Illinois, New York, Florida, Utah, Washington, New Mexico and Colorado. However since maximum fabrication employees don’t seem to be examined for silicosis within the U.S., hundreds extra undiagnosed employees are no doubt struggling with it.
Now, loads of ill employees around the U.S. are suing producers and vendors of those fatal counter tops, in addition to the big-box shops that promote them. One of the early instances had been settled out of court docket. In 2024, within the first case that went to trial, a 36-year-old employee with silicosis who underwent double lung transplantation whilst on lifestyles fortify was once awarded US$52 million.
A rising international epidemic
Outbreaks of silicosis have adopted the advent of engineered stone countertop manufacturing around the globe.
Caesarstone, an Israeli corporate, was once probably the most first to promote it. Between 1997 and 2010, 25 Israeli employees who had labored with its merchandise had been referred for lung transplants.
Engineered stone silicosis was once subsequent identified in Spain, with 5,900 instances reported between 2007 and 2024. In 2023, the landlord of a Spanish corporate known as Cosentino admitted to overlaying up the risks from running with the fabric and gained a six-month suspended jail sentence for 5 counts of great damage because of gross negligence, consistent with press experiences.
As gross sales of the brand new product grew globally, instances of silicosis amongst countertop fabrication employees seemed in the US in 2014, Australia in 2015, and extra just lately in Nice Britain, China and Taiwan.
Instances of silicosis are rising international as use of engineered stone will increase.
In Might 2026, responding to the silicosis deaths of younger employees, Britain issued new steering banning dry chopping of engineered stone merchandise, and introduced plans to check up on 1,000 fabrication stores.
In Australia, public well being officers started strengthening place of business coverage necessities in 2021. When the ones steps had been discovered to be inadequately efficient in controlling publicity to the fatal mud, the nationwide govt banned the importation and use of engineered stone merchandise containing greater than 1% crystalline silica.
To proceed to promote their product in Australia, many makers, together with Caesarstone and Cosentino, now marketplace slabs which might be constituted of overwhelmed glass fairly than quartz.
Preventing engineered stone silicosis in the USA
In 2024, California’s OSHA followed a place of business usual more potent than the prevailing federal laws. Alternatively, enforcement – each statewide and nationally – is disastrously underresourced. Federal OSHA has sufficient inspectors to seek advice from each place of business handiest as soon as each 191 years.
Additional, since employers declare that many of those countertop employees are impartial contractors, their offices don’t seem to be beneath OSHA’s jurisdiction.
Till producers prevent production and outlets apply Ikea’s lead and forestall promoting engineered stone counter tops containing crystalline silica within the U.S., hundreds of employees will proceed to be uncovered to fatal mud, and a ways too many will broaden preventable silicosis or most cancers.
