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Part Three – Deadly Dust from Antiquity Stirs Up Challenges Today

Fri, 02/14/2014 - 11:50 -- Donny Beaver

Comprehensive Guide to Minimizing Respirable Silica Dust Exposure in Hydraulic Fracturing 

Part Three – Deadly Dust from Antiquity Stirs Up Challenges Today

 Recognition of respiratory problems from breathing rock and stone dust traces back to ancient Greece and Rome.  By the 1500s pulmonary disorders were formally recognized as diseases of stonecutters and miners.  Bernardino Ramazzini, often referred to as the father of occupational medicine, observed asthma symptoms and sand-like materials in the lungs of stonecutters.  Known as miners’ phthisis, grinder’s asthma or potter’s rot for centuries, Visconti, coined the term “silicosis” in 1870 (from Latin silex, or flint).

 In their publication Review of Literature on Dusts (1950), Forbes & Davenport noted that as late as the 1920s silicosis was still an “….obscure, scarcely recognized disease hidden for centuries in the chest of workers in various dusty industries….”  In spite of public obscurity, the US Department of Health Service had observed a high frequency of silicosis in foundry workers in 1917. However, 20th century advances in technology created equipment that helped drill, crush, cut, blast and polish stone containing silica at ever-increasing speeds and escalating pressures, liberating dangerous dusts in the workplace by several orders of magnitude from the antiquated hand-cutting methods. Silicosis came to the forefront in the 1930s after the Hawk’s Nest tragedy at Gauley Bridge, WV where 476 workers died of silicosis in a matter of months while drilling and blasting a tunnel for a new power project.  Known as the worst industrial disaster in American history, the Hawk’s Nest catastrophe gained the attention of US Department of Labor which, in 1937, hosted the National Silicosis Conference and produced this newsreel in 1938 http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GtYErK9KjQ8 Silica is the second-most common element on earth and is useful in so many commercial and industrial processes that its use continues to expand in the 21st century.  Because of this, nearly two million US workers are still exposed to respirable silica dust each year in many different industries including mining, transportation, construction, sandblasting, foundries, glass manufacturing, hydraulic fracturing, stone cutting and ceramics. This document is Part Three in a series called, “The Comprehensive Guide to Minimizing Respirable Silica Dust Exposure in Hydraulic Fracturing” produced by HalenHardy.

Coming Next:  Part Four – What you can’t see can hurt you.

 © 2013 Donald Beaver – HalenHardy, LLC – All rights reserved. HalenHardy LLC, specializes in protecting workers from airborne dangerous dusts and operates from its headquarters in Bellwood, PA, near the epicenter of Marcellus Shale exploration & production region.  Our innovative MASHH Mobile Air Showers by HalenHardy protect workers by removing hazardous dust from their clothing. HalenHardy is the founding member of the Clean Team Dust Alliance, a group of companies focused on substantially reducing respirable silica dust exposures in the Oil & Gas Exploration & Production industry. For more information, please see our website at www.MASHH.com Contact Donny Beaver at dbeaver@HalenHardy.com or 814-571-9779

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