New chapter arrives for ongoing McIntyre powder project: advocate for miners' health presents on international stage.

• Author: Kelly, Lindsay
• Position: MINING

Validation. That's the immediate feeling that washed over Janice Martell after attending the 2017 Keele Meeting on Aluminum in Vancouver, a biennial event that gathers international experts to talk about their research into aluminum.

Martell, the founder of the McIntyre Powder Project, participated in the renowned symposium with researchers from the Occupational Health Clinics for Ontario Workers (OHCOW), with whom she's been working to catalogue health effects in miners who inhaled aluminum while working in Northern Ontario mines.

"Some of these questions that I've had for a few years now, I could just literally turn to the guy at the next table, who happened to be an eminent researcher in this field, and ask that question and get the answer," said Martell, who attended the meeting March 5 to 8.

"They absolutely support that I'm on the right track with this and that OHCOW is on the right track with the database in studying this."

Martell started the project after her father, retired miner Jim Hobbs, was diagnosed with Parkinson's disease in 2001. She suspects the inhalation of finely ground McIntyre aluminum powder--a requirement of his employment--is the cause of his illness, and has been lobbying the Ontario government for further study of health trends in miners like her father.

Until now, interest in the research being done by Martell and OHCOW has been largely limited to Ontario. But Keele changed that, and exposure to an international, expert audience brought Martell a sense of relief and optimism that her work would continue.

"It was really profound to have it so well received, and to have people on board looking at our miners, because they really haven't been studied," she said. "It's abysmal what has been done for these guys."

The practice of inhaling McIntyre Powder was applied to miners between 1943 and 1980. Workers could be fired if they didn't comply.

In the time since the practice was discontinued, only two follow-up studies have been done. Many miners have developed health issues--everything from neurodegenerative diseases to respiratory conditions --which many suspect was caused by the aluminum powder.

Funded by the Workplace Safety and Insurance Board (WSIB), OHCOW took on the cause last year, holding a series of intake clinics, where miners were interviewed to gather their health and work histories. But...