The Dust Hazard in Tremolite Talc Mining *

From time to time the attention of the Division of Industrial Hygiene has been drawn, through compensation claims, to incapacitating fibrosis in. talc workers. Since silicate dusts, of which talc is one, have been considered relatively innocuous in the opinion of most authorities (the single exception being asbestos), the occurrence of these cases has naturally raised several questions-the obvious question as to whether this incapacity has resulted from talc exposure alone, and the second and more interesting question as to whether industrial hygienists, with few exceptions, have erred in considering asbestos to be the only injurious silicate dust. In an attempt to answer these questions, the study here reported was undertaken. It consisted of an investigation of the talc industry and an examination of talc miners and mill workers in northern New York State (St. Lawrence County) made, as a joint enterprise of the Division of Industrial Hygiene of the State Department of Labor and the Division of Tuberculosis of the State Department of Health.t