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When Eric Reyes-Briga first got a job in the stone fabrication industry, he liked it.

He worked with customers and learned a skilled trade.

For me, it was interesting because I'm the kind of person that likes to learn a lot of things.

It was something new.

Reyes-Briga, who's now 36 years old and has two children, was making countertops, like

the ones you may have in your kitchen or bathroom.

He would take large slabs of stone and cut them to a customer's specific dimensions, then

polish and round off the edges, exactly to spec.

He says they took basic precautions in his shop. No one told him about the risks.

Nobody was saying anything about it was dangerous or somebody saying, you know, why you had to wear

this kind of thing, where he's going to do this to your body. They never said anything.

About two years ago, Ray Esperiga's father-in-law, who he worked alongside, had trouble breathing.

He was diagnosed with a disease he had never heard of. Silicosis.

Silicosis is an irreversible, incurable lung disease, caught from inhaling small particles of silica

dust over several decades, usually in heavy industrial settings.

It's been called Grinders' disease, miners pythus, and potters rot.

It's the world's oldest known occupational disease.

There's evidence of it occurring in Neolithic men who chiseled tools and weapons out of stone.

It's also been seen in the lungs of Egyptian mummies.

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