Eddie Lorenzi was a welder from the day he left school at 16 to the day he died, of lung cancer, at 64.
He loved his job – it was the only one he ever had – but it was ultimately what killed him.
Debra Vivarini-Lorenzi lost her husband Eddie, a welder of 48 years, to lung cancer in 2021.Credit: Justin McManus
“Everyone always told me, when I was walking down the street, what a great man he was, and what a hard worker,” said Debra Vivarini-Lorenzi, his wife of 19 years. “He didn’t deserve to die at 64. He had so much living to do, and a family that loved him.”
Lorenzi is among a growing cohort of welders suffering the consequences of decades of inhaling fumes increasingly linked to cancer.
In 2017, all welding fumes were listed as group 1 carcinogens known to cause cancer, and in 2022 a peer-reviewed study by the World Health Organisation estimated that workers exposed to welding fumes were 48 per cent more likely to develop lung cancer and 27 per cent more likely to die from it.
Lorenzi died at Royal Melbourne Hospital on July 16, 2021, four months after he was diagnosed with stage 4 lung cancer. WorkSafe Victoria found his exposure to welding fumes had increased his risk of developing cancer, and the Lorenzi family received the first of two workers compensation claims.
Ex-welder Anh Tran won workers compensation in 2014 after having his right lung surgically removed in a landmark Victorian County Court case.
Lorenzi’s lawyer, Tess Dickie from Gordon Legal, said Tran’s case had opened the door for Lorenzi and other welders battling cancer to receive compensation.
“I think that more people will start to ask questions about the link between their lung cancer and their work,” she said.
Similar to asbestos or silica dust, welding fumes cause repeated inflammation and replacement of lung cells which can potentially lead to cancerous cells developing in the lungs, said Professor Tim Driscoll, an expert in workplace diseases at the University of Sydney’s School of Public Health.
Debra Vivarini-Lorenzi with daughter Kate and husband Eddie Lorenzi before his death in July 2021. Credit:
“To be harmed by welding fumes, silica dust, or from asbestos, you have to breathe them in,” he said. “That’s a problem if it’s in the air, but it also opens up the possibility of ways to control it by decreasing the concentration in the air, and also protecting the person from breathing it in.”
Driscoll is working on a study, commissioned by Safe Work NSW, looking at exposure to welding fumes and the use of safety measures in the state, and expects the results to be available “within a month or two”.
In Australia, the legal limit for welding fumes was set at 5 milligrams per cubic metre in 1991, and it hasn’t been changed since.
The Australian Manufacturing Workers’ Union is campaigning for the threshold to be brought in line with the Netherlands and Germany, where the limit is 1.25 mg and 1 mg respectively.
“Under the current standard, welders are legally being allowed to breathe in 11 milligrams of a known carcinogen [each year],” said the union’s national work health and safety coordinator, Dave Henry. “It’s mind-boggling.”
There were 62,000 people employed in the structural steel and welding industry at the 2021 census, including 42,567 metal fabricators and 19,897 welders.
Research from Canada’s Occupational Cancer Research Centre estimates 1.3 per cent of lung cancers are caused by exposure to welding fumes, which in Australia would translate to 189 people diagnosed each year.
In a statement, a spokesman for the federal government said Safe Work Australia was reviewing the exposure limit for welding fumes “as part of a broader review of workplace exposure limits for airborne contaminants”.
The review of workplace exposure standards came after this masthead’s investigation into increased rates of the deadly respiratory disease silicosis among workers in the artificial stone benchtop industry.
Vivarini-Lorenzi said she wanted more people to be made aware of the dangers of welding fumes, in the same way they had about asbestos and silica dust.
“I really want the whole industry to know that people do die from lung cancer,” she said. “I don’t want anyone to suffer like I have suffered, and my daughter has suffered.”
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