“Workers who reduce with the stone could be exposed to much greater levels of silica,” says Heinzerling, “and I suppose we’re seeing more and more employees who are working with this materials who’re being put at risk.” The employees have been nearly all Hispanic, almost all have been men, and most had “severe, progressive disease.” The worry is that hundreds of workers within the United States who create counter tops out of what is generally recognized as “engineered stone” may be inhaling dangerous quantities of lung-damaging silica mud, as a result of engineered stone is mostly made of the mineral …