Abstract (EN)

We read with great interest Blanc's editorial entitled ‘What has been done will be done again’.1 It presents the ‘seemingly perpetual problem of silicosis’. In other words, occupational health hazards entailed by exposure to crystalline silica (e.g. silicosis, autoimmune diseases and pulmonary alveolar proteinosis) have been repeatedly (re)discovered and (seemingly?) forgotten, making the struggle against silicosis a Sisyphean task, despite knowledge on silicosis and its ‘preventable’ character. To understand such a paradox, Blanc urges us to pay attention to the historical context.We willingly concur with this suggestion and would like to add three more reasons to do so, with the final aim of questioning the very notion of ‘preventability’ of diseases in occupational settings.