'Fired up' to keep searching for justice: no cause found between McIntyre Powder exposure and neurological disease in miners, says WSIB.

• Author: Kelly, Lindsay
• Position: MINING

A Workplace Safety and Insurance Board (WSIB)-commissioned review of scientific research into the connection between aluminum powder exposure in the workplace and adverse health effects in miners has failed to find a link between the two.

On Aug. 17, the WSIB issued a release with the findings of the review--titled Systematic Review of Occupational Aluminum Exposure and Adverse Health Conditions --which Intrinsik Corp. launched earlier this year.

"Overall, the systematic review and the statistical analysis conducted showed that the question of health risks from workplace aluminum exposure is complicated," reads the study's summary.

"The findings across the literature were inconsistent. Epidemiological studies have failed to establish consistent associations or clear exposure response relationships between workplace aluminum exposure and nervous system-related diseases, cognitive outcomes, lung function outcomes, and other negative outcomes."

As a follow-up, the WSIB has commissioned the Occupational Cancer Research Centre to undertake a new study to take a closer look at the link between neurological disease and McIntyre Powder exposure.

The WSIB said the new study will use historical records, including the Mining Master File (MMF)--which has information on more than 90,000 employees in the Ontario mining industry--to "link the MMF records to provincial health records" to see if exposed miners have a greater risk of developing neurological disease compared to the general population.

The results of the study are anticipated in late 2019.

The announcement comes following mounting pressure from former miners who were required to inhale finely ground aluminum--known as McIntyre Powder --prior to their shifts at mines across the North, as a condition of their employment.

Impacted miners have been brought together through the efforts of Janice Martell, who founded the McIntyre Powder Project, a quest to find more answers following the 2001 diagnosis of Parkinson's in her father Jim Hobbs, a retired miner.

Hobbs died of the disease in May.

Martell said the WSIB study's findings don't come as news.

"It doesn't surprise me whatsoever that they didn't find a link between occupational aluminum exposure and neurological disorders because they haven't studied our McIntyre miners, other than two studies that were done," she said.

"So it doesn't surprise me at all that they can't find consistent links, because the work hasn't been done on this particular...