• Skip to primary navigation
  • Skip to main content
  • Skip to primary sidebar
  • Skip to footer
Injured Workers Online

Injured Workers Online

Working Together for Justice

  • Blog
  • Sign Up
  • About
  • Twitter
Working Together for Justice
  • Workers’ Compensation
    • History
    • Law Reform
    • Workers’ compensation bills
    • Chronic Pain Victory
    • Research and Education
    • Bancroft Institute
    • Meredith Conference: “No-Half Measures”
    • RAACWI
  • Issues
    • Appeals
    • Benefits
    • Experience Rating
    • Funding
    • Mental Health
    • Poverty
    • Return to Work
    • Stigma and surveillance
    • Universal Coverage
  • Community
    • Ontario Network of Injured Workers Groups (ONIWG)
    • Workers’ Comp Is a Right campaign
    • Injured Worker Groups
    • Injured Workers’ Stories
    • Organizing and Action
    • IW Speakers School
    • Arts & social justice
  • Events
    • Calendar View
    • RSI Awareness Day
    • Day of Mourning
    • Justice Bike Ride
    • Injured Workers Day
    • December demo
    • Labour Day – a workers’ festival
  • Media
    • In the News
    • Press Releases
    • Fact Sheets
    • Headlines on workers’ compensation
    • Videos
  • Resources
    • Law and Policy Submissions
    • Reports, Articles & Papers
    • Practical guides & booklets
    • IWHP Bulletins
    • Library
    • Find Legal Help
    • Links
Home / Blog / Diseases & Injuries / “A disregard for workers’ environmental & health concerns”: lessons of the McIntyre Powder program

“A disregard for workers’ environmental & health concerns”: lessons of the McIntyre Powder program

March 30, 2021

A recently published article “Dust versus Dust: Aluminum Therapy and Silicosis in the Canadian and Global Mining” (Canadian Historical Review, 102(1) Mar. 2021: 1-26) provides a thorough, if disturbing, examination of the forces in play behind the development and widespread adoption of McIntyre Powder. Facing a silicosis crisis as the disease ravaged the lungs of underground miners exposed to the silica dust, the finely ground aluminum oxide was first tested as a possible preventative treatment by industrial doctors at the McIntyre Mine, Porcupine, northern Ontario, in the late 1930s. Over the following three decades the McIntyre Research Foundation (MRF) distributed its treatment to miners on nearly every continent. In exploring the intersection of corporate and government interests, the scientific controversies, the role of labour, workers’ compensation board and the media,  the authors reveal how the “Canadian mining industry, working under the auspices of the MRF, reinforced its power over workers, denying them the right to informed consent as they exposed them to a form of industrial pollution that carried dire consequences for their future…”

McIntyre Powder Project founder Janice Martell offers a resounding endorsement of the detailed history of the program:

The “Dust versus Dust” article offers a comprehensive review of the “quick fix” use of McIntyre Powder by the mining industry to combat silicosis, at an unknown cost to the health and lives of the miners and workers who were given no choice but to “breathe deep, boys!

“When I first began researching McIntyre Powder in 2011, an online search yielded two entries: the Sandra Rifat study […], and a notation in the Mining Hall of Fame honouring McIntyre Porcupine Mine Manager R.J. Ennis for instituting the use of McIntyre Powder inhalation to address the problem of silicosis.  When I researched archival records from the McIntyre Research Foundation, the Ontario Mining Association, and relevant government entities, the control that the northern Ontario mining industry had over the McIntyre Powder story was pervasive.”

Filed Under: Diseases & Injuries, Research, Safety

Primary Sidebar

Latest Tweets

InjuredworkersonlineFollow

Injuredworkersonline
Injuredworkersonline@IWO_org·
17 Apr

Canada’s first major workplace COVID vaccination clinic could be the model for large employers across Canada https://www.thestar.com/news/canada/2021/04/16/canadas-first-major-workplace-covid-vaccination-clinic-could-be-the-model-for-large-employers-across-canada.html via @torontostar

Reply on Twitter 1383238958293798924Retweet on Twitter 1383238958293798924Like on Twitter 1383238958293798924
Injuredworkersonline@IWO_org·
17 Apr

‘Infuriating’ new COVID-19 measures ignore science table advice on stricter lockdown, paid sick days https://www.thestar.com/news/gta/2021/04/16/infuriating-new-covid-19-measures-ignore-science-table-advice-on-stricter-lockdown-paid-sick-days.html via @torontostar

Reply on Twitter 1383238417857667078Retweet on Twitter 1383238417857667078Like on Twitter 1383238417857667078
Injuredworkersonline@IWO_org·
14 Apr

Open Letter to Premier Ford and MPP’s Elliott and McNaughton – A Call to Protect Ontario Workers from COVID-19 https://ofl.ca/open-letter-to-premier-ford-and-mpps-elliott-and-mcnaughton-a-call-to-protect-ontario-workers-from-covid-19/

Reply on Twitter 1382423026009055232Retweet on Twitter 1382423026009055232Like on Twitter 1382423026009055232
Load More...

Footer

Stay connected – get our blog updates
Copyright © 2021 Injured Workers Online
  • Accessibility
  • Terms of Use
  • Privacy

The information in this website is for educational purposes only. It is not a substitute for legal advice. For legal advice, see Find legal help