DOGE Is Bringing Back a Deadly Disease | Cuts to agencies that protect workers’ lungs are going to result in the resurgence of a preventable illness.

The worst workplace disaster in US history was silicosis.

Mama I tell you I cannot get my breath

Were some of the last words a young man would speak. His mother had to carry him to his bed where he slowly suffocated to death.

Silicosis is no fucking joke. I watched my father die to fibrosis, which is very similar. He went from an energetic and active retiree to a chair bound and weak man in a matter of weeks. He lived the rest of his life barely able to walk from his car to the scooters to go grocery shopping. Doing so much as turning a valve to shut off the water to his sprinklers would have taken him an hour or more, and he wouldn't have been able to do much else that day.

He lived for 2 of the 5 years he thought he had fighting for every single breath. All day. Every day.

For all the mineral and “crystal” people - both the woo woo and scientific varieties:

You can get silicosis from cutting or polishing specimens/gemstones. Always wear a properly fitting N95 mask at minimum when doing any sort of work involving cutting, grinding, carving, or polishing minerals, rocks, or gemstones.

This public service messsage brought to you by a Gen X told to go outside and play with rocks as a kid. The more you know💫

Silicosis is typically caused by years of breathing in silica dust at work, and can worsen even after work exposures stop. In recent years, after decades of inaction, the federal government finally took several important steps to reduce the incidence of this ancient and debilitating disease. Under the Trump administration, all that progress is going away, in but one example of the widespread destruction now taking place across the federal government.

Silicosis first caught the attention of the federal government in the early 1930s, when hundreds of workers hired by the chemical company Union Carbide and its subsidiary to drill a tunnel through a mountain of almost pure silica died of silicosis. Most of the workers were Black, and many were buried in unmarked graves. President Franklin D. Roosevelt’s secretary of labor, Frances Perkins, issued a report on the widespread problem across factories and mines, informing businesses that control measures, “if conscientiously adopted and applied,” could prevent silicosis.

Carpenters Firemen Coal miners (they still exist) Doctors Nurses Respiratory therapists Nursing assistants Hobby woodworkers Body shop / mechanics Masons Painters Farmers Homeowners working on pre 1970 houses Contractors in general Paramedics Boatwrights EMTs Exterminators

All of these people risk injury, chronic illness, and death without proper gear and regulation. I’m sure I missed some people, this is just off the top of my head.

Well . . . Yeah. Without exception all of the cuts are to programs and actual living humans who are intended to protect and help Americans.

It’s not just a travesty, it’s truly evil.

But you squeeze it into some kind of rationalized sausage there, Atlantic. I know you’re one of the few corporate news nozzles trying at least.

Oh, well. It was probably for the best. Those getting sick were likely too poor to mean anything. /s

As long as the richer get richer the rest of us are expendable.

Just think of all the tax cuts we can give to billionaires from having to pay out less pensions!