Silica in the News
SILICOSIS is emerging as the biggest threat to tradies since asbestos, with five confirmed cases already diagnosed in Western Australia.
Tradies installing kitchen benchtops are exposing themselves and their customers to potentially deadly levels of silica dust as artificial stone tops increase in popularity.
Read more: communitynews.com.au
Safe Work Australia recently announced it will cut the silica dust exposure limit from 0.1 milligrams per cubic metre over an eight-hour shift to 0.05 milligrams in three years time.
Monash University’s Dr Ryan Hoy – a research fellow and respiratory physician – first heard of the alarming new silicosis outbreak in Australia in 2015 through the case of a Vietnamese stonemason in New South Wales. Now only four years later the incurable disease is at epidemic levels, with young tradespeople either dying or having lung transplants. Both outcomes, Dr Hoy says, death or usually terminal illness, are “unnecessary.”
Read more: lens.monash.edu
Michael Nolan has urged work health and safety authorities meeting on Wednesday to reduce the silica dust limit. Photograph: Nolan family
A Victorian father who has a life expectancy of only five to 10 years if he doesn’t get a lung transplant soon says the new national mandatory limit for silica dust exposure doesn’t go far enough and that the decision will “cost lives”.
Michael Nolan, 33, is a former stonemason who was diagnosed in March this year with silicosis and is on a waiting list for a transplant. He wanted the present dust exposure limit, of 0.1 milligrams per cubic metre over an eight-hour shift, dramatically cut to save lives.
Read more: theguardian.com
Greens spokesperson for Workers’ Safety and Industrial Relations Hon Alison Xamon MLC is today calling on the Government to take immediate action to protect workers from the clear danger that exposure to silicosis presents.
“We know that this is a huge issue right across the country there is no reason to think WA is any different. The figures on the numbers of workers with silicosis coming out of Queensland are staggering and early numbers from WA are indicating we may be heading the same way. Read more: miragenews.com
Victoria will push for a national crackdown to protect tradies from the lung disease silicosis.
Victoria will push for a national crackdown to help protect Australian tradies from the deadly lung disease silicosis.
The state Andrews Labor government wants to the national silica workplace exposure standard lowered to one-fifth of its current level.
It comes ahead of a meeting between the state and federal workplace health and safety watchdogs in Sydney on Wednesday to discuss the silicosis standard. Read more: armidaleexpress.com.au
Queensland’s first support network for silicosis sufferers will be holding a free community forum on the Sunshine Coast on Saturday 3 August at the Maroochydore RSL club commencing at 11am.
Silicosis is a disease which leading health professionals have warned could be the 21st century’s asbestos crisis. Read more: mysunshinecoast.com.au
Since April, the Federal Government has been promising to set up a national taskforce to examine an illness that could be Australia's biggest occupational lung disease crisis since the James Hardies asbestos saga.
Hundreds of tradies who work with manufactured stone benchtops have been diagnosed with silicosis, an aggressive and incurable form of lung disease; and one in five people who have worked in cutting the material are likely to contract it. Read more: abc.net.au
Kyle Goodwin was a teenager when he landed a plum apprenticeship — but he had no idea his dream job would be a killer.
I ended up in stonemasonry by chance. I went for an interview as a boat mechanic but the employment agency said, “You’ve got a bit of background in rural life (I grew up working at the Mullumbimby co-op selling fertilisers and that kind of thing) — would you be interested in stonemasonry?Read more: news.com.au
Professor Brendan Murphy is the nation's chief medical officer and is likely to head up the taskforce on the new silicosis crisis.
He said one of the biggest problems in addressing the problem is that we don't yet know the extent of it.
The new taskforce will endeavour to discover who has the disease and who is at risk of contracting it in every state and territory. Listen to article: abc.net.au
Queensland workers, including coal workers and stonemasons, will have better workplace health and safety protections, thanks to changes made by the Palaszczuk Government to the Public Health Act 2005 and Public Health Regulation 2018.
Minister for Natural Resources, Mines and Energy Dr Anthony Lynham said pneumoconiosis, silicosis and other occupational dust diseases would now be recorded on the Queensland Health Notifiable Dust Lung Disease Register. Read more: qld.gov.au
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