This is unprecedented. We’ve launched an Emergency Silicosis Appeal because we need your help to tackle an escalating health crisis.
Silicosis is a deadly lung disease, described as the worst industrial health crisis since asbestosis. It mainly affects stonemasons, who inhale toxic silica dust while cutting engineered stone products like kitchen benchtops. The silica dust settles in their lungs and stops their lungs from working.
Silicosis cannot be cured or treated, and it’s often fatal. Hundreds to thousands of stonemasons are at risk of this deadly disease. Since last year, over 100 have been diagnosed in Queensland alone. In March, one man died from silicosis, aged just 36.
Please will you give a gift to advance our urgent research into a treatment for silicosis, so young workers in the prime of their lives – no longer face a death sentence?
Through the Prince Charles Hospital Foundation, our researchers are hopeful that they’ve found a way to treat silicosis. It’s called Whole Lung Lavage and it involves washing the toxic silica dust out of the lungs with 25 litres of warm saline solution.
“It’s like taking a nail out your foot,” says lead researcher Professor Dan Chambers. “If you’ve stepped on a nail, you can’t deal with the problem unless you remove the nail. This treatment works on the same principle: it removes the toxic silica dust that’s damaging the lungs.”
“We firmly believe that silicosis doesn’t have to be a death sentence. We’re confident that we have found a transformational treatment and we can solve the problem quickly, with some help. We need research funds.”
Professor Chambers and his team need $103,500 to move forward with their pioneering research and test their potentially lifesaving treatment. With more and more workers being diagnosed with silicosis every day, we need to tackle this health emergency now. Please will you help?
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