Silicosis disables many workers, and hundreds of Americans die each year with the disease. Many of those afflicted have no knowledge of the disease which plagues them. As the condition worsens, the nodules become progressively larger and breathing becomes increasingly difficult. Eventually the worker may die of respiratory failure. The only know treatment for advanced silicosis is a lung transplant.
Transplantation is no solution.
It is unacceptable. Silicosis first received widespread public attention in 1936 when as many as 1,500 men died near the town of Gauley Bridge, West Virginia, as a result of breathing in silica dust. These men were asked to tunnel through a mountain of almost pure silica, even though the health effects of silica exposure had been documented for decades. In this element of extreme risk, no safety precautions were taken. Nearly six decades after the catastrophic happenings at Gauley Bridge, an estimated two million American workers remain at risk for developing silicosis.