this post was submitted on 01 Aug 2025
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I am once again reminding the world that the ancient Romans warned not to buy slaves from asbestos mines because of the health issues they had.
We have known for a very long time that asbestos was bad and we keep using it to this day.
At least we aren't using it to make easy clean tablecloths and napkins that only need to be thrown in a fire to clean...
I believe the risks of silicosis from silica were known since ancient times too, although they probably didn't have any solutions or alternatives for it historically. More recently, there was the Hawk's Nest tunnel disaster in the US during the 1930s, where around a 100 mostly black workers died as a result of silicosis developed from cutting and blowing up quartz without any sort of protective measures.
Then in the modern era, there was a ban implemented in Australia of construction using high silica "engineered" stone. You'd think given the known health risks of silica that this could have been predicted, although it's not as clear cut (heh) as the risks of asbestos, since at least part of the problem was construction workers not using preventative measures such as wet drilling and PPE. But you could see how that goes over when the workers are often vulnerable in some way, and do not feel comfortable saying no to their bosses.