The article is a bit vague. Anyway silicosis has been traditionally the illness of miners and (to a lesser extent) masons. The (I believe by now worldwide) ba

The article is a bit vague. Anyway silicosis has been traditionally the illness of miners and (to a lesser extent) masons. The (I believe by now worldwide) ban on asbestos derives from that, a surprising number of types of minerals/rocks may contain silicates. If you prefer, though there are differences, asbestosis and silicosis are similar: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Asbestosis https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Asbestosis https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Silicosis https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Silicosis The issue is with the particles that someone may inhale, it is not a real problem unless you cut/sand/break the materials and create dust. In the case of asbestos the problem is more serious as the material itself may degrade over time and the dust is produced without any intervention. The granite or marble counter top in your kitchen is safe, but the people that mined, cut, ground, sanded and polished it (and hundreds of similar ones) may well have been exposed to this dust. Marble should be fine, natural granite has a high percentage of silica, in the case of engineered stone the percentage of silicates is higher, so working on engineered stone is more dangerous than natural granite.