Construction is a risky business full of jobsite hazards, from life-threatening falls to blunt-trauma injuries, but more insidious dangers exist, such as crystalline silica inhalation, which can lead to a type of cancer known as pneumoconiosis. It's what coal miners call black lung disease, where tiny airborne particles cause lesions and scarring on the lungs, gradually leaving workers unable to breathe.
Silicosis, its equally harmful cousin, currently affects 1.7 million workers annually, reports the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC). It is caused by breathing in one of earth's most common minerals, silica, which becomes a corrosive inhalant from the cutting, sawing, grinding, drilling and crushing of stone, rock, concrete, brick, block, mortar and industrial sand.