Research that could have been beneficial to the health and safety of workers in the engineered stone countertop industry was abruptly halted due to a gutting of the agency conducting the research.

The National Institute for Occupational Safety and Health, or NIOSH, is expected to lose upwards of 900 employees, the vast majority of its staff, by early July as a result of the mass firings carried out by Secretary of Health and Human Services Robert F. Kennedy Jr. 

NIOSH, part of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, has a broad mandate to prevent injury, illness and death in the workplace, which touches on many industries and potential hazards.

One of the NIOSH experts who was let go in the "Department of Government Efficiency" purge of NIOSH is Kyle Mandler, a pulmonary toxicologist at the Morgantown, West Virginia, location. Mandler had been running laboratory studies focused on a spike in lung disease linked to silica dust in the countertop industry. "There wasn't a shutdown — a shutdown implies an orderly procedure," said Mandler. "We were in the middle of working to try and understand what is inherent in the material that was potentially so deadly for these workers," he said.

The researcher, with 7.5 years at NIOSH, highlighted studies showing rapid progression of silicosis in workers exposed to engineered stone, which contains high levels of crystalline silica. Silicosis is a form of occupational lung disease caused by inhalation of crystalline silica dust. It is marked by inflammation and scarring in the form of nodular lesions in the upper lobes of the lungs.

The studies, involving rats and cell cultures, revealed severe lung fibrosis and inflammation. Mandler emphasized the need for better controls in the industry to protect workers, noting that current OSHA standards may be inadequate.

What makes engineered stone so dangerous is the increased amount of silica as compared to natural stone. Engineered stone can contain up to 90 to 97% silica, whereas natural stone such as granite contains less than 45%, and marble usually contains less than 5%.

Silicosis is caused by breathing in very fine, respirable, dust containing crystalline silica. Initially, individuals may be developing disease even without respiratory symptoms. High levels of exposure can cause faster development of the disease. Workers who fabricate the material are at risk for overexposure to silica released during sizing, cutting, grinding and polishing.  Prolonged inhalation of dust from silica-containing materials can lead to silicosis or scarring of the lungs.

Engineered stone can also contain other materials than just the silica. "There's so many different products [from multiple suppliers] and they all have their own kind of proprietary blends of binding agents, usually polyester biomes and factory plastic binder resin. They also contained a variety of metallics. "When you grind or otherwise manipulate these things, then the emissions that they kick off are not just silica dust."

In one study, he exposed rats to this dust over an 84-day period. "The big takeaway from that study was the amount of fibrosis and how quickly it occurred."

While a rat lung is not necessarily representative of exactly what happens in a human lung, Mandler said that what we saw was extremely concerning. “We saw the development of structures in the lungs that we hadn't even ever seen before."

Many shops do have sophisticated controls to protect workers, but even in those cases danger lurks. "Even in a control environment, with good local exhaust ventilation and water jetting, grinding these materials were still generating stuff above the OSHA limit for silica."

With the cuts, the next planned study was curtailed even before it could be undertaken. That study was meant to docus on the best ways to protect workers from harm. "It is very disappointing that we couldn't complete that study," he said.