The Proper Chemistry: Canadian answer not a proud second for science

Article content material

The employees, all lined in white mud, appeared like ghosts as they emerged from the Hawks Nest Tunnel close to the city of Gauley Bridge, West Virginia in 1931. Greater than seven hundred of the tunnelers would quickly die, incomes Gauley Bridge the nickname, “the city of the dwelling lifeless.” The ticket for the journey to the realm of ghosts was silicosis, a virus of the lungs.  

Article content material

Union Carbide had an iron smelting operation close to Gauley Bridge that required electrical energy. The corporate determined to construct a hydroelectric plant close by utilizing water diverted from the New River by a three-mile lengthy tunnel to show the generators. With America mired within the Nice Despair, recruiting staff to dig the tunnel was not troublesome. However digging the tunnel was. Almost 3000 staff, principally African-American, unequipped with respirators, drilled and blasted by the sandstone kicking up clouds of silica mud that they might not assist inhaling. Crystalline silicon dioxide is devastating to lung tissue, inflicting lesions and irritation. Relying on extent of publicity, the consequences can vary from coughs and shortness of breath to weight reduction, respiratory failure and loss of life. To make issues worse, the Worldwide Company for Analysis on Most cancers (IARC) classifies silica mud as a identified human carcinogen. 

Article content material

Many of the tunnel diggers received sick to some extent and there have been studies of ailing labourers being pressured to work at gunpoint. Deaths had been frequent with some being buried in unmarked graves with out family even being notified. They’re remembered in the present day with a monument that marks the burial website of the victims of the worst industrial catastrophe in American historical past. However the Hawks Nest Tunnel diggers are only one instance, albeit a brutal one, of the scourge of silicosis. Miners, notably of gold and uranium, additionally should drill by quartz, a type of silicon dioxide, placing them liable to silicosis. 

Article content material

Article content material

That brings us to a fairly darkish episode in Canadian historical past. Sandy McIntyre was a Scottish immigrant who in 1906 started to prospect close to the northern Ontario city of Porcupine. He struck gold and commenced what got here to be often known as the “Porcupine gold rush.” In 1912, the McIntyre Mine was integrated and shortly turned an enormous operation, retaining the title even after McIntyre had bought his curiosity. Enterprise was good however there was the fixed downside of battling silicosis. Prices of compensating staff for an occupationally acquired illness may show to be paralyzing, so the corporate looked for an answer. And so they discovered it, in of all issues, aluminum powder.  

On the time it was believed that silica’s damaging results had been because of the sharp edges of its crystals scarring lung tissue. If the silica particles could possibly be coated with some materials that dulled their floor, maybe the plague of silicosis could possibly be averted. Within the Thirties, the mine’s officers sought assist from the College of Toronto’s prestigious Banting Institute that led to dosing guinea pigs and rabbits with aluminum powder earlier than exposing the animals to silica mud. These experiments had been deemed to achieve success sufficient to warrant testing on seven dying miners at St. Mary’s Hospital in Timmins. Once they appeared to reply to the aluminum therapies McIntyre Mine’s metallurgist James Denny and doctor Wilmot Robson patented finely floor aluminum as “McIntyre Powder (MP)” for the therapy and prevention of silicosis. 

Article content material

Between 1940 and 1943 the powder was put to a check with staff inhaling it earlier than their shift. How these staff had been chosen, and to what extent they had been knowledgeable in regards to the experiment isn’t clear. Neither was it clear on what foundation these experiments had been judged to achieve success. What is obvious, nonetheless, is that beginning in 1943, all McIntyre miners had been made to inhale aluminum powder earlier than descending into the mines. They filed right into a chamber, the doorways had been closed, and the aluminum powder was pumped into the air from canisters. The employees had been instructed to breathe deeply for 10 minutes and had been advised that the powder would shield their lungs. They’d no alternative. In the event that they objected, they had been advised that they might discover one other job.  

Using McIntyre Powder was taken up by mines around the globe and unbelievably the follow continued till 1979. Why unbelievably? As a result of there was by no means any proof that the aluminum provided safety in opposition to silicosis! Miners had been stored from complaining about illnesses by monetary incentives to maintain working. Bonuses had been provided for no misplaced time for accidents however had been contingent on not a single employee in a gaggle lacking work. A sick or injured miner would do all the things to not miss a shift to make sure that colleagues wouldn’t be prevented from getting the bonus. Items had been additionally provided for reaching a objective of a set variety of days not misplaced to sickness or damage. So sick or not, miners simply carried on. By 1979, although, it had turn out to be apparent that inhaling aluminum didn’t stop silicosis, and worse, it created issues of its personal. 

Article content material

A lot of this we all know because of the work of Janice Martell, who based the McIntyre Powder Venture in 2015. Janice’s father, Jim Hobbs, had labored within the mines and was subsequently recognized with Parkinson’s illness. When he recounted the story of being made to inhale aluminum powder to his daughter, she determined that the can of worms wanted to be opened. The McIntyre Powder Venture solicited accounts of experiences within the mines and documented quite a lot of circumstances of neurological issues, notably Parkinson’s illness. Tales emerged from offended miners who felt that that they had been handled like guinea pigs and had been prevented from receiving compensation for sickness attributable to inhaling the aluminum powder that had been promoted as a miracle antidote to lung illness.  

Lastly, in 2022, because of Janice’s lengthy marketing campaign, the Ontario authorities acknowledged Parkinson’s illness as an occupational dysfunction linked to the usage of McIntyre Powder and agreed to simply accept compensation claims from former staff in addition to from households of miners whose loss of life could have been linked to the involuntary inhalation of aluminum powder. 

Article content material

Today, when there may be a lot concern about air air pollution and inhaling microscopic particles, it’s exhausting to consider that for some 35 years miners had been made to inhale aluminum mud, supposedly for his or her well being regardless of a scarcity of supporting proof of security and efficacy. Not a proud second for science. 

Joe Schwarcz is director of McGill College’s Workplace for Science & Society (mcgill.ca/oss). He hosts The Dr. Joe Present on CJAD Radio 800 AM each Sunday from 3 to 4 p.m. 

[email protected]

Article content material