美国国家公共电台 NPR Workers Are Falling Ill, Even Dying, After Making Kitchen Countertops

 

DAVID GREENE, HOST:

There is an increasingly popular material that's used to make kitchen and bathroom countertops. It's a kind of artificial stone. And public health experts say it has been linked to deaths and lung injuries in workers who have cut and polished it. NPR's Nell Greenfieldboyce reports that thousands of workers could be at risk.

NELL GREENFIELDBOYCE, BYLINE¹: Jose Martinez is 37 years old. He used to work at a countertop maker², at the kind of place that takes slabs³ of natural and artificial stone and cuts and polishes them to order. He says all that cutting produced dust, and the dust got everywhere.

JOSE MARTINEZ: Your nose, your ears, your hair, all your body, your clothes - everything. Everything. When you walk out of the shop, you can see your step on the floor because of the dust.

GREENFIELDBOYCE: After years of this, he started feeling dizzy and weak.

MARTINEZ: I can't play with my kids outside because I get tired really easy.

GREENFIELDBOYCE: Doctors told him he has silicosis - an untreatable, sometimes progressive lung disease. It's caused by breathing in silica dust. Silica is a mineral found in natural and artificial stone. Now Martinez is worried because he's heard from former co-workers that two other employees of that company died of silicosis last year.

MARTINEZ: And when I go to sleep, I think about it every night - if I'm going to die in three or four, five years. And I have four kids, my wife. Because to be honest with you, every day I feel worse. Nothing is getting better.

GREENFIELDBOYCE: His experience and those two deaths are described in a new report on 18 silicosis cases. All occurred in countertop fabrication workers in California, Colorado, Texas and Washington.

AMY HEINZERLING: I am concerned that what we may be seeing here may just be the tip of the iceberg⁴, that there likely are more affected⁵ workers who have yet to be identified.

GREENFIELDBOYCE: Amy Heinzerling is an epidemic⁶ intelligence service officer with the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention who's assigned to the California Department of Public Health.

HEINZERLING: We know that there are thousands of shops and nearly 100,000 workers in this industry in the United States.

GREENFIELDBOYCE: They also know that more and more these workers are cutting engineered stone. This option for countertops has really taken off in the last decade. It's a composite made of bits of quartz⁷ bound together by a resin⁸. Manufacturers say it's less likely to crack or stain the natural stone, but it contains a lot of silica, and cutting it creates silica dust.

HEINZERLING: Engineered stone typically contains over 90% silica. That's compared to other natural stone materials. So granite⁹, for instance, usually contains less than 45% silica. Marble usually contains less than 10%.

GREENFIELDBOYCE: A spokesperson for a trade organization that represents major engineered stone manufacturers told NPR that dust-related diseases can come from unsafe handling of many different materials, that the risks are not specific to engineered stone. But Heinzerling thinks it's significant that all of the sickened workers in the U.S. were exposed to dust from engineered stone. Not all of them actually cut the stone. Cecile Rose is a lung specialist at National Jewish Health. She's recently seen seven patients with silicosis from this industry. Two of them worked as cleaners who would sweep up the worksite.

CECILE ROSE: So they were exposed to the silica particles that were suspended in the air just with housekeeping duties.

GREENFIELDBOYCE: Almost all of the sick workers described in the new report are Hispanic, and almost all have progressive, severe disease.

ROSE: What's so alarming about these cases is that the age in many of these workers is quite young. And of course, the real tragedy here is that it's preventable.

GREENFIELDBOYCE: Simply controlling the dust eliminates the risk. Some countertop manufacturers are both aware of the danger and taking action. David Scott owns and operates Slabworks of Montana, in Bozeman.

DAVID SCOTT: I have upwards¹⁰ of 8-, 900 slabs of stone in stock, in inventory¹¹, physically¹².

GREENFIELDBOYCE: When his workers cut them, they use wet cutting techniques to keep down dust. He first tested airborne silica levels in his shop about five years ago. They were only marginally acceptable. So he brought in a floor scrubber and installed air handling systems with filters.

SCOTT: And we brought our silica levels, at times, down to undetectable.

GREENFIELDBOYCE: A safety agency at the Department of Labor¹³ called OSHA says that employers are responsible for keeping the workplace free of known hazards. A former head of that agency says it could be doing more. David Michaels is now an epidemiologist at George Washington University. He says, in 2015, OSHA issued a hazard alert about the risk for countertop workers after there'd been one U.S. case of silicosis and multiple cases overseas. And in 2016, OSHA cut the amount of airborne silica allowed in the workplace.

DAVID MICHAELS: But there hasn't been any follow-up. OSHA hasn't done inspections¹⁴ in these facilities to give the message to this industry that, unless new equipment is brought in, unless silica exposures are controlled, people are going to get sick and people are going to die.

GREENFIELDBOYCE: He says OSHA's ability to do those inspections is hampered¹⁵ by the fact that, in 2017, the Trump¹⁶ administration ended a safety program that put a special emphasis on silica.

Nell Greenfieldboyce, NPR News.

1 byline   

n.署名；v.署名

参考例句：

• His byline was absent as well.他的署名也不见了。
• We wish to thank the author of this article which carries no byline.我们要感谢这篇文章的那位没有署名的作者。

2 maker   

n.制造者，制造商

参考例句：

• He is a trouble maker，You must be distant with him.他是个捣蛋鬼，你不要跟他在一起。
• A cabinet maker must be a master craftsman.家具木工必须是技艺高超的手艺人。

3 slabs   

n.厚板，平板，厚片( slab的名词复数 )；厚胶片

参考例句：

• The patio was made of stone slabs. 这天井是用石板铺砌而成的。 来自《简明英汉词典》
• The slabs of standing stone point roughly toward the invisible notch. 这些矗立的石块，大致指向那个看不见的缺口。 来自辞典例句

4 iceberg   

n.冰山，流冰，冷冰冰的人

参考例句：

• The ship hit an iceberg and went under.船撞上一座冰山而沉没了。
• The glacier calved a large iceberg.冰河崩解而形成一个大冰山。

5 affected   

adj.不自然的，假装的

参考例句：

• She showed an affected interest in our subject.她假装对我们的课题感到兴趣。
• His manners are affected.他的态度不自然。

6 epidemic   

n.流行病；盛行；adj.流行性的，流传极广的

参考例句：

• That kind of epidemic disease has long been stamped out.那种传染病早已绝迹。
• The authorities tried to localise the epidemic.当局试图把流行病限制在局部范围。

7 quartz   

n.石英

参考例句：

• There is a great deal quartz in those mountains.那些山里蕴藏着大量石英。
• The quartz watch keeps good time.石英表走时准。

8 resin   

n.树脂，松香，树脂制品；vt.涂树脂

参考例句：

• This allyl type resin is a highly transparent, colourless material.这种烯丙基型的树脂是一种高度透明的、无色材料。
• This is referred to as a thixotropic property of the resin.这种特性叫做树脂的触变性。

9 granite   

adj.花岗岩，花岗石

参考例句：

• They squared a block of granite.他们把一块花岗岩加工成四方形。
• The granite overlies the older rocks.花岗岩躺在磨损的岩石上面。

10 upwards   

adv.向上，在更高处...以上

参考例句：

• The trend of prices is still upwards.物价的趋向是仍在上涨。
• The smoke rose straight upwards.烟一直向上升。

11 inventory   

n.详细目录，存货清单

参考例句：

• Some stores inventory their stock once a week.有些商店每周清点存货一次。
• We will need to call on our supplier to get more inventory.我们必须请供应商送来更多存货。

12 physically   

adj.物质上，体格上，身体上，按自然规律

参考例句：

• He was out of sorts physically,as well as disordered mentally.他浑身不舒服，心绪也很乱。
• Every time I think about it I feel physically sick.一想起那件事我就感到极恶心。

13 labor   

n.劳动，努力，工作，劳工；分娩；vi.劳动，努力，苦干；vt.详细分析；麻烦

参考例句：

• We are never late in satisfying him for his labor.我们从不延误付给他劳动报酬。
• He was completely spent after two weeks of hard labor.艰苦劳动两周后，他已经疲惫不堪了。

14 inspections   

n.检查( inspection的名词复数 )；检验；视察；检阅

参考例句：

• Regular inspections are carried out at the prison. 经常有人来视察这座监狱。
• Government inspections ensure a high degree of uniformity in the standard of service. 政府检查确保了在服务标准方面的高度一致。 来自《简明英汉词典》

15 hampered   

妨碍，束缚，限制( hamper的过去式和过去分词 )

参考例句：

• The search was hampered by appalling weather conditions. 恶劣的天气妨碍了搜寻工作。
• So thought every harassed, hampered, respectable boy in St. Petersburg. 圣彼德堡镇的那些受折磨、受拘束的体面孩子们个个都是这么想的。

16 trump   

n.王牌，法宝；v.打出王牌，吹喇叭

参考例句：

• He was never able to trump up the courage to have a showdown.他始终鼓不起勇气摊牌。
• The coach saved his star player for a trump card.教练保留他的明星选手，作为他的王牌。