Ground to dust: fracking, silicosis and the politics of public health

Attempts to block new standards for exposure to silica dust highlight tensions between public health and corporate power in America's fracking boom.

Let me tell you an outrageous yet all-too-common tale of how public health science is politicized to serve powerful interests. There are many poison pills attached to a recent funding bill passed by a U.S. Senate committee, but none taste as bitter to scientists and advocates of worker safety as a provision that would prevent the government from protecting workers from exposure to silica dust.

Silica dust is created through construction, mining and other industries that grind down rock, concrete, masonry and sand. Over-exposure to the dust causes an irreversible scarring of the lungs called silicosis. Approximately 2.2 million American workers are exposed to this hazard, and this contributed to the death of 1,437 Americans from silicosis between 2001 and 2010.