1 out of 10 tunnel employees can develop silicate, show our modern research

About 10% of underground tunnel workers in Queensland may develop silicate, Our new study He found.

Silicon is a sedate, incurable lung disease caused by inhalation of miniature silica dust particles. Perhaps you heard about it in people working with engineering stone. But silica is more widespread.

Silica is located in Rocks and concreteSo employees in industries such as construction, mining and tunnel are exposed to high risk if there are no adequate safety measures.

When silica dust is inhaled, he is trapped in the lungs, causing inflammation and scars. Over time, this scarring makes breathing hard and can be fatal.

Because they can reveal silveria decades to appearEmployees may not realize that they are patients only after they started working and even after stopping.

But it is sillying be avoided.

How does siliciosis affect tunnel employees?

Thousands of people They are involved in tunnel projects in Australia.

Tuning involves breaking enormous amounts of rock containing silica with massive machines.

Tunnel employees rely on advanced ventilation systems to ensure fresh air underground, water systems, so that the rocks are saturated and suppress dust, and wear respirators on the face, so that the air breathe neat. But some people raised fears These funds do not always work properly.

Currently there are national legal limits for exposure to silica dust, now 0.05 milligrams per cubic meter For an eight -hour working day.

However, media investigation In November last year it was revealed that one -third of air monitoring tests from the Sydney tunnel project were above legal limits.

Although air monitoring tests are required by law, the results of routine air monitoring are often not made public.

Recently, in Recent South Wales, an expert task group was created to deal with the health risk associated with silica for tunnel employees, promising to achieve high silver limits results above legal limits Publicly available.

But while the attention was focused on tunnel employees in SydneyThe problem of lung disease in underground employees is more widespread.

Our study Queensland

The results of air monitoring tests are crucial because they show whether the limits of legal silica dust legal.

Another valuable employ of this data is that it can assist us predict the future risk of illness. Instead of waiting to see how many employees develop silica -related diseases such as silverosis and lung cancerThese data can be used to estimate the cases earlier.

In 2017, Queensland’s parliamentary investigation rose Fears of the health of the BRISBANE tunnel employeesEspecially in relation to the harmful effects of exposure to silica dust.

We worked on parliamentary investigation documents to discover the results of hundreds of individual air monitoring tests carried out on three main Queensland tunnel projects in 2007–2013.

We analyzed this data to estimate how many employees were exposed to silica dust and at what levels. Then Modeled, how many cases Steering and lung cancer would occur during the life of employees.

We estimated that in a group of about 2,000 employees involved in these projects of the Queensland tunnel, 200 to 300 He would develop silveria all his life as a result of exposure to silica dust (about one in ten employees).

It is also estimated that 20 to 30 employees will develop lung cancer due to their exposure.

In specific projects we had restricted information on the conditions in the workplace, which is why we adopted a number of assumptions based on publicly available information and our own experience. They included assumptions regarding the employ and protective nature of masks. The fact that we had to adopt some assumptions may be a limitation of our study. Due to the lack of data transparency, we do not know whether these numbers apply to tunnel employees throughout Australia.

Our expected silveria indicator, 10%, is the same as a silveria indicator registered by A Government inquiry in 1924. who studied silveria among employees who built channels in Sydney.

So it does not seem that things are better in terms of the risk of silveria in underground work than a hundred years ago.

We must do more to protect tunnel employees

Further Secret around the data on silica dust It reduces our ability to understand the scale of the problem and effectively react. Nevertheless, a miniature amount of data that has been made available confirms the need for urgent actions.

Due to the continuous expansion of infrastructure in Australia, decision -makers must now work. This should include the enforcement of more severe legal limits in the scope of exposure to dust silica. Is Care among health experts These current limits do not sufficiently protect employees’ health.

Decision -makers should also provide protective measures, such as advanced ventilation and dust suppressing systems for all tunnel projects, configure the National Tunnel Worker Health Surveillance and provide data on exhibitions to employees and society.

There are several examples in which things are better. In the international arena, Norway and Switzerland Have mighty health care systems for tunnel employees, such as air and health monitoring led by an independent government agency. In Switzerland, this agency also insures a project. Incompatibility causes higher insurance premiums or, in some cases, withdrawal of insurance, effectively stopping the project.

Throughout the country, the Australian mining industry is more regulated than tunnel, with more severely enforcement of compliance.

Without immediate intervention, thousands of tunnel employees will continue to face sedate health threats, and Australia will have a growing wave of occupational diseases that can be prevented.