California Steps Closer to Ban on Engineered Stone After Silicosis Surge

For months, major manufacturers of artificial stone, opposed to the move, argued that their factory-made product is not the problem, but countertop fabrication shops that fail to follow proper safety measures, such as covering stone slabs with water while cutting to suppress dust.

Representatives for Minnesota-based Cambria, Cosentino, headquartered in Spain, and other companies in the multi-billion dollar industry sought to cast doubt on the need for a prohibition, proposing a fabricator certification program and more enforcement instead.

“Banning a product to compensate for failed enforcement is irresponsible,” said Matt Thurston, regional director of Cosentino North America, during the marathon-length public testimony that preceded the vote in Los Angeles. “Allowing illegal fabricators to keep exposing workers to silica dust from other materials like natural stone is not worker protection. Number two, many shops already use these products safely and legally.”

Statewide, more than 560 stoneworkers have contracted a more aggressive form of silicosis after inhaling toxic crystalline silica dust generated by artificial stone when it’s cut or polished. At least 31 people have died from the disease since 2019, and nearly 60 have undergone lung transplants.

About 75% of these cases were confirmed over the last three years. Nearly all of the patients are Latino men, many of them low-income immigrants who said they didn’t know about the hazards of working with artificial stone, also known as quartz or engineered stone, until they or their co-workers got sick.

The rapid rise of silicosis in the industry — with about 1,000 new cases expected in the state over the next two years — coincides with skyrocketing consumer demand for engineered stone countertops in the last two decades, according to officials at the California Department of Public Health and Cal/OSHA. The state is the only one in the U.S. actively tracking the disease, even though more than a hundred cases linked to artificial stone have been identified in Colorado, Texas, Illinois, Florida and other states.

“I’ve had a lot of suffering. Last time, I vomited a lot of blood, and my nightmare did not end there,” Demetrio Luna, a California silicosis survivor who recently underwent a lung transplant, said in Spanish as board members neared a vote. “You can stop this because it is not just the patient who suffers, but the entire family. And despite what they say about wearing masks and cutting with water, the particles are so tiny that they enter the lungs.”

Silicosis lung transplants among miners and all other occupations were relatively rare in the past three decades, with only 93 total nationwide between 1990 and 2022, said Dr. Betsey Noth, a senior industrial hygienist with Cal/OSHA. Since then, artificial stone workers in California have undergone 58 lung transplants, with additional patients found ineligible for the medical procedure because they were too sick.

Successful lung transplants, which cost $1 million or more each, extend patients’ lives by only a handful of years on average. Dr. Jane Fazio, a UCLA pulmonologist, told OSHSB board members that lung transplantation for the surge in engineered stone silicosis cases is a “very expensive band-aid.”

“It’s a terrible use of resources, and it is endless human suffering,” said Fazio, who has cared for most silicosis patients in the San Fernando Valley, in the U.S. silicosis epicenter. “Do we want to prolong a problem or do we want a swift solution to a problem that is only getting worse unless we remove a dangerous product that’s really at the heart of the problem?”

A medical association petitioned the state in December to start expedited rulemaking to prohibit the use of engineered stone with more than 1% crystalline silica to make and install countertops. As part of the petition’s review, a detailed Cal/OSHA evaluation and the board’s own staff determined that removing the product upstream in the distribution chain would be the quickest and most cost-effective way to stem the silicosis epidemic.

But the OSHSB proposed decision language released to the public last week seemed to require two committees to study the matter further, a path championed by chair Joseph Alioto, a trial attorney who has advocated for the criminal prosecution of countertop fabrication shop employers found violating current silica rules. The move raised alarm bells among worker advocates who worried that the additional steps would create unnecessary delays — and derail a ban — in the face of an urgent occupational hazard.

Adding to the concerns, only three board members were present for the high-stakes vote, instead of seven. Gov. Gavin Newsom, responsible for appointments to the body that approves workplace safety rules, has left two seats vacant for months.

Ultimately, the active board members — Alioto, Urwin and industrial hygienist Nola Kennedy — decided to grant the physicians’ petition and kickstart a fast-track process for Cal/OSHA to develop a regulation prohibiting the use of artificial stone with crystalline silica, which would take several months and still require another vote before approval. In a parallel track, the agency was tasked with convening two additional advisory committees.

José Andrade Peña, an Oakland resident who was diagnosed with advanced silicosis in 2024 and who testified in person before the board last month while carrying the oxygen machine he needs to breathe, applauded the decision.

“What great news,” Andrade Peña, 53, said in a text message. “It comes as a huge relief to me and to many of my colleagues that are still working with this highly dangerous material. God is great.”

The decades-long countertop fabrication worker, who used to be proud of lifting 60-pound stone slabs and being his family’s main breadwinner, said he can no longer work and is mostly confined to his home. Coughing fits and exhaustion rule days filled with worry for his five children.

“It’s painful and frustrating to know that the government still allows these toxic products to continue being sold,” Andrade Peña said. “Artificial stone should have been removed from the market a long, long time ago.”