Ontario confirms link between Parkinson’s and McIntyre powder historically inhaled by miners

The Ontario government has formally recognized that an aluminium and aluminium oxide powder called McIntyre powder, which many Ontario miners were required to inhale as a preventive step against silicotic lung disease from 1943 to 1979, is associated with developing Parkinson’s disease.   

Earlier this month the government amended a regulation under its Workplace Safety and Insurance Act to recognize the link, a move that would “guarantee compensation for workers” who were exposed to the powder and developed the brain disorder, it said.  

Activist Janice Martell who founded the McIntyre powder project in 2015 and has been spreading awareness about the health issues it caused miners exposed to the powder, told The Northern Miner that this was the first occupational disease listed in the Act since 1994.  

“This announcement … came as a surprise so it took a while before the significance of this settled in on me,” said Martell, whose father Jim Hobbs was diagnosed with Parkinson’s in 2001 after he was exposed to the powder in 1978 while working as a miner at Rio Algom’s Quirke 2 mine in Elliot Lake.  

“I hope that this is the first of many occupational diseases that get added,” she said. “I feel really happy for my miners, but it also made me feel badly that so many other occupational diseases go unrecognized.” 

With 54 registered miners diagnosed with Parkinson’s, the McIntyre powder project, plans to seek a formal apology from the Ontario government and is also working on bringing changes in the way WSIB deals with occupational disease claims, Martell said. 

Hobbs was diagnosed with Parkinson’s in 2001, but it wasn’t until 2011 that he told his family that he had been forced to inhale aluminium dust as part of a treatment program at the time designed to prevent developing silicosis. 

The program ended once it was determined that the powder offered no protection and concerns were raised about the potential neurological effects.   

Hobbs filed a workers compensation claim, which was denied by the Ontario Workplace Safety and Insurance Board in 2011, according to Martell. At that point, she started researching the powder and speaking to other miners who had been exposed to it.  

“The initial research that I did confirmed that aluminium is neurotoxic, so to my mind, if you are inhaling extremely finely ground aluminium particles, they could get to the brain and cause the kind of cell damage that leads to Parkinson’s,” she said.  

In response to concerns about McIntyre powder, the WSIB engaged the Occupational Cancer Research Centre (OCRC) in 2017 to examine the link between the powder and adverse health conditions.  

In March 2020 the WSIB published a report that stated it had found a “statistically significant increased risk of Parkinson’s disease in miners exposed to McIntyre powder.”  

This study included records of 36,826 Ontario miners that were collected from existing data. To be eligible for the study, the miners needed to be alive and living in Ontario as of January 1992 and their records needed to have sufficient information for linkage and analysis.   

Of the 36,826 miners studied, 9,548 or 25.9% were exposed to the powder based on self-reports, the study found. Of the 9,548, 364 were diagnosed with Parkinsonism (any condition that causes a combination of the movement abnormalities seen in Parkinson’s disease), 334 were diagnosed with Alzheimer’s disease, 251 were diagnosed with Parkinson’s disease and 20 were diagnosed with motor neuron disease. 

The study also found that 13,828 workers were also exposed to the powder, based on employment, mine and job type records. Exposed miners had a 34% greater incidence rate of Parkinson’s disease and a 19% greater rate of Parkinsonism compared to miners who were never exposed.   

“Anyone in our province who falls ill on the job should have the confidence that they, and their loved ones, will be taken care of,” Monte McNaughton, Ontario’s labour minister stated in a press release on February 2. “I am so pleased to announce a change that will guarantee compensation for workers who have suffered unfairly as a result of exposure to McIntyre powder.”  

When asked how her family reacted to the government’s announcement, Martell said: “My family is very proud and elated about this news because it means that other families won’t have to go through what our family went through, trying to care for dad without supports that could have enabled him to stay at home and die with dignity.” 

Martell’s father Hobbs died in 2017.