Dusted: The Men of the McIntyre Powder Experiment

A troubling history of the involuntary aluminum dust treatment for thousands of gold and uranium miners.

Shocked by her father's disclosure that he was forced to inhale aluminum dust at his mining job as an unproven medical treatment, she watched as his Parkinson's disease advanced, rendering him helpless. Janice Martell embarked on a quest to determine if the two events were related. What she discovered was a thirty-six-year-long human experiment controlled by the Ontario mining industry involving tens of thousands of mine and factory workers in Canada, the United States, Australia, Mexico, Chile, Belgian Congo, and England.

Martell weaves discoveries from archival records and freedom of information documents with the life stories of the men affected by McIntyre Powder, revealing a pattern of blatant disregard for human rights in favour of economic power.

In the current landscape of shifting global stability and economic uncertainty, the lessons of the McIntyre Powder experiment demand our full attention as we make public policy and nation-defining choices that will impact the next generation of workers.