Industrial workers in certain occupations who develop silicosis have twice the rate of death from lung cancer when compared to the general U.S. male population, according to researchers at the UC Davis School of Medicine and Medical Center. Affecting about 100,000 U.S. workers, silicosis is a chronic lung disease that develops after long-term exposure to silica dust in industries such as mining, quarrying, and gravel production, construction, agriculture and sandblasting. "This study shows that exposure to silica dust and silicosis are true occupational risk factors for lung cancer," says principal investigator David F. Goldsmith, a senior scientist with the Western Consortium for Public Health In Berkeley. "Our work deepens a strong link between silicosis and lung cancer that many in the occupational medicine field had doubted in the past." Silica dust can be easily controlled, he says. With the link to cancer confirmed, Goldsmith and his colleagues hope private industry and state and federal authorities will reevaluate silica dust workplace standards. The study of 590 California men was published in a recent issue of the American Journal of Industrial Medicine.