Slow-motion tragedy for American workers

Lung-damaging silica, other toxic substances kill and sicken tens of thousands each year as regulation falters

By Jim Morris, Jamie Smith Hopkins, Maryam Jameel

PORT BYRON, New York — Six weeks before Chris Johnson was born in 1974, the U.S. government issued a warning about a substance that would nearly kill him 30 years later.

The substance was silica, a component of rock and sand that is the scourge of miners, sandblasters and other workers who breathe it in. When pulverized into dust, it can cause silicosis — a scarring of the lungs that leads to slow suffocation — as well as lung cancer.