Seeking justice: project documents impacts from aluminum powder in miners.

• Author: Kelly, Lindsay
• Position: NEWS

Janice Martell hadn't even heard of McIntyre Powder until a few years ago. then someone suggested her father, Jim Hobbs--who had been diagnosed with Parkinson's disease after three decades of working in nickel and uranium mines--could be eligible for compensation.

She began to research. And what she discovered was a revelation.

Between 1943 and 1979, underground miners working at operations in Canada and around the world were mandated to inhale fine aluminum dust--called McIntyre Powder by the mining executives who established the practice--at the start of every shift, and cough it up before heading home.

Facing high rates of health claims from miners, executives thought the powder would coat the lungs, working as a preventive measure against silicosis, a respiratory disease caused by breathing in fine silica particles.

Early medical research showed a possible link to neurotoxicity, and the practice was abandoned.

Jim Hobbs had been required to inhale the powder while working at the Quirke II uranium mine in Elliot Lake.

Martell was incredulous.

"I'm a miner's daughter and I didn't know that it happened until four years ago," she said. "Our dads are stoic; they don't talk about these things. They go in, they do their job, they come home, they feed their families. That's what they did."

A 2013 study out of Western Australia showed that, not only did McIntyre Powder not prevent silicosis, but those who had inhaled it actually had a higher potential for developing serious chronic illnesses, such as Alzheimer's disease, stroke, and cardiovascular diseases.

Research Martell found from the 1990s showed that miners who had been exposed to aluminum dust fared worse on cognitive tests than those who had not been exposed, and the longer the miners had been exposed to the dust, the worse their test results.

The McIntyre Powder dissemination program was developed by mining executives with help from the Ontario Department of Health (now the Ministry of Health and Long-Term Care) and the Workers Compensation Board of Ontario (now the Workplace Safety and Insurance Board--WSIB). Yet attempts by workers to receive compensation have been spotty at best, said Martell.

Her own attempt to file a claim on her dad's behalf was unsuccessful, but she wasn't deterred. Instead, she started what she calls a "justice project," documenting and cataloguing the names, stories and health details of miners who inhaled McIntyre Powder.

"It's unbelievable to me that the...