GPs are at the forefront in combatting a new epidemic — but it’s not an infectious disease that has public health experts concerned.

An epidemic of silicosis has emerged among workers in the engineered stone industry, bringing into focus the continued risk of lung diseases facing Australian workers across many occupations.

As with coal workers’ pneumoconiosis (CWP), which shocked physicians when it re-emerged among Queensland coal miners a few years ago, it was thought that safe work practices had relegated silicosis to history.

But its latest incarnation suggests thousands of stonemasons and other workers have been exposed to crystalline silica dust when fabricating, cutting and polishing the popular artificial stone for kitchen and bathroom benchtops installed in countless Australian homes since around 2000.