As this article focuses on coal miners' black lung, hundreds of new structures are going up in Chicago. Structures made of steel and concrete, that must be sawn and dressed with a resulting huge amount of silica dust. Someone I know who works on these buildings expressed grave concerns about her safety when we last dined together, despite the fact that she makes 3 times my salary on those unflnished high floors. As the article mentions, silica dust is more injurious to human lungs and perhaps a more widespread threat than the diminishing coal. But the Trump administration is nothing if not laissez-faire so what regulations will OSHA invoke for this health hazard?
2
Black lung disease for the miners, black lung disease in the form of lung cancers for the rest of us. A fuel that is going the way of the wagon wheel either by the growing green technology or by Global Warming putting an end to it all. Death by coal is like the fate of the Vietnam veterans with Agent Orange... survive the battle die because of the war... years later...in great pain. Both coal and Agent Orange cause by government actions.
TrumpCare will take care of his voters.
Some of you might wish the trump voting miners to a black lung death, but I bet they would vote in more trumps if they have no other options. BTW, the Dems did a pretty good job to contribute to this mess including giving Blankenship a 1 year of prison (lite) for killing 26 miners. Unfettered capitalism is a hungry beast.
MAKE COAL GREAT AGAIN ! ! YAY BLACK LUNG 2020 ! ! !
3
I would not wish lung disease on anybody regardless how they vote. It’s a self-imposed death sentence.
2
Oh, a new epidemic of black lung disease because of relaxed enforcement is just fine with these guys. They all likely voted for Trump, and so are fully on board with supporting any number of things that are directly opposite to their best interests.
Nothing to see here . . . moving on . . .
2
And they won't be able to afford medical care either, unless they can prove they are working or volunteering. Sorry to say but feeling little sympathy in the "Great" new America courtesy of the Greedy Old Party.
2
Hey gang!
While we're celebrating coal history, what say we clear a specially lighted section in the trophy case for Mitch McConnell, hero of capitalism and miner's friend.
A man who single handedly laid such waste to his home state of Kentucky that its hard to find a decent place to lay a weary miner to rest. Certainly not some pristine mountain top, as those are mostly jamming up the once lovely waterways below.
To be fair in a gender-considerate kind of way, lets include Mrs. McConnell, too. Operating as Elaine Chow, US Secretary of Labor and boss of the Mine Safety and Health Administration at the time, Mrs. Mitch oversaw the Martin County coal slurry spill.
30 times bigger than the disaster Exxon Valdez gifted to Alaska, the sludge cloud deposited 300,000,000+ gallons of arsenic- and mercury-laden mine waste into the Big Sandy and Ohio rivers, killing essentially all aquatic life and depriving almost 30,000 people of water.
As you might expect, there was a hefty Federal penalty for Massey Energy to pay. $5,600, to be exact. When Republicans took the White House, they killed the investigation in its crib.
In case you're wondering, that's the same Massey Energy that caused a 2010 mining disaster which killed 29 miners.
The good news is Don Blankenship, who took the fall for Massey Energy, is out of prison and running for the Senate from West Virginia. You thought black lung was bad news...
Or maybe you thought it's rude to call miners stupid.
14
Darwin award
2
These fools voted not only to undermine their health, but others as well. Ask me if I feel anything for them.....
2
"The rule was challenged by coal industry groups as costly and overly burdensome."
What would those miners say to this? The coal-country states, the mining companies and lobbyists, and the miners themselves too, have been thrashing Dems (and Obama) for killing coal. They must not have realized that coal is bad not only for the environment, but for their own lungs too. At the end of the day, these miners are the ones bearing the brunt of it (with black lungs), their states (having repeatedly failed to diversify their state economy) having to pay for most of it it through medicaid, and GOP glibly cheering it on (as GOP out of state really has no skin in the game).
I feel for these miners, yet their insistence to stick it out with coal continues to baffle me. Their own states and GOP have really served them very poorly. It's sad.
4
I know this is where compassion and the high road should come into action...but it is difficult. So many in these very regions voted against the person who had actionable plans ready to go -- and all to help them. Instead, they helped elect the one who championed "beautiful" coal. It is very sad.
7
Good for coal country.
They're getting exactly what they voted for.
Just make sure to send the hospital bill to Donald Trump c/o Vladimir Putin.
9
When Trump said America First....he really meant let’s take out all of the poor, working class and middle class Americans first! Trump and the Republicans don’t think the rest of us deserve to live.
3
Too bad they don't have access to health care.
3
USA USA Make America Great Again Trump Trump Trump
One of the questions I had to ask when I registered folks with Mcare at a California hospital was “Are you part of the Black Lung Program?” In five years only one woman answered yes. Most people had no idea about the disease.
It is sad to see the increase in this disease. Tax dollars and a lot of effort went into the problem. Trump is loosening and ignoring rules that keep Americans safe. Environmental and work place regulations are there for protection. They aren’t an evil plot by liberals to take jobs.
5
They voted for it. They should be happy.
7
The heck with the Affordable Care Act. Just use meth and work in a coal mine. You gotta die of something. So what if the person who cleans your work clothes inhales some coal dust. It's coal that put food on the table and a roof over their heads. Your life is a small price to pay.
5
So, the coal miners want their great jobs back - they elected the toddler trump so they could have these jobs back. And why not? What other job will pay someone who didn't even graduate from high school $77K right out of the gate? And the companies are happy - they get cannon fodder for their dirty coal mines.
Who gets stuck actually paying for this? The taxpayers, paying for treatment of black lung disease. If coal miners and coal companies want to risk it all and play these high stakes games, they should have to deal with the consequences as well as the rewards, and not leave us holding the bag.
11
Don't be so glib about your assessment, even if most of it is true. What other choices do these coal miners really have? There is no other type of jobs to be had, and given their level of education and skills, there really is not much choice in jobs, if any, never mind a job that pays well.
Hindsight is 50/50, but their state government should have tried to diversify when times were good, and there was still time that they can afford to attract other industries. But nothing really happens. And these states, and miners, are forever stuck with coal, joined in the hips. All that GOP would do, is to serve up more of the same banters, blaming their own misfortunes and mismanagement to Dems. Sad.
4
I live in the coal-mining part of Virginia. The idea that the state of Virginia would diversify the economy to get people out of coal mining is absurd. The folks in Richmond couldn't care less about our area of the state, and it's not as though the mining is in central Virginia. They dismiss us as "hillbillies" and giggle. (This isn't assumption, this is fact.) People here get used and discarded by the coal industry and used and discarded by politicians.
Richmond couldn't care less. Doubtful? Do a search for "Southwest Virginia" and see what comes up on official state sites. To the snobs in Richmond, "Sputhwest Virginia" means Roanoke, which is almost 4 hours away from here. This makes less sense than calling Richmond a coastal city.
In short, Virginia is perfectly happy to see all of us die off. The plantation no longer needs us.
1
Well, the GOP tells everyone else in similar financial straits to "just move where the jobs are" and/or, just go get some training. But those people aren't in an industry that buys off politicians.
President Bone Spurs is doing his best to bring back "beautiful, clean coal" for the mine owning companies. What is he doing for the victims of mining that ":beautiful, clean coal." That would be nothing.
7
We need to keep this in perspective. According to Wikipedia the US has about 50,000 coal miners.
Compare that to the 29,000 who die EACH YEAR from prostate cancer, the 40,000 who die EACH YEAR from breast cancer.
So yes, coal mining is dying with or without Trumps support.
But, remember. Many Americans die of cancer because they did NOT have cancer screenings that would have caught the disease early enough to cure.
During the Obama administration, the Department of Health and Human Services was told to recommend fewer PSA tests with the justification that the tests were showing too many false positives. I suspect the real reason was to save money to make Obamacare more affordable.
Who knows how many American men died as a result of this ruling.
It is liberals who claim that the US has unlimited medical resources. How else could they support open borders, as Hillary Clinton did as revealed by the Podesta emails.
America needs universal health care. And liberals have abandoned the poor on this issue.
Instead there are constant stories about famous actors or actrices who got unwanted sexual advances.
Ask anybody suffering from terminal cancer. He would gladly suffer sodomy by Kevin Spacey if it resulted in a cure.
Liberals have blood on their hands for not stopping the flow of illegal immigrants, for declaring LA a sanctuary city.
Lets help Mexico solve its overpopulation problem but by promoting family planning, not illegal immigration.
2
"During the Obama administration, the Department of Health and Human Services was told to recommend fewer PSA tests with the justification that the tests were showing too many false positives. I suspect the real reason was to save money to make Obamacare more affordable.", you say.
Apart from the gratuitous political non sequitur, you mis-state the facts.
Obama beefed up safety regulations and inspections, and sought to punish miscreant mining companies (basically all of them) and issued policy to that effect.
The first thing Trump did on taking office was to repeal those regulations and set the corporations free to resume killing their employees.
Mine safety costs the country basically nothing.
3
It was the Republican Congress that voted constantly to end Obamacare instead of fixing it, and caused my rates to skyrocket, and in the tax obscenity, voted to get rid of the mandate in an effort to kill Obamacare having been unable to vote it out directly. Did they ever offer up a plan for single payer or Medicare for all. Not on your life. In fact they had no plan because their plan for everyone who is not obscenely rich is to bankrupt themselves and then die.
Or are you claiming that the Republican Congress is a bunch of liberals?
It was Trump who ran on getting rid of Obamacare, not Hillary and not Bernie.
Hillary did not support open borders, and nothing of the kind was revealed in the Podesta emails. However, it is true that many liberals support sanctuary cities and seem to confuse legal immigrants with illegal immigrants. Republicans who want to keep labor costs down have for years refused to enforce immigration laws. Obama deported more illegals than any Republican before Trump.
AS for people with blood on their hands, that would be every single government official who has not stood up to the gun lobby, and that does include one liberal, Bernie Sanders.
Yes, we need universal coverage. It was Bernie who campaigned on that and Hillary who campaigned on fixing Obamacare, which, being a Republican conservative idea from the right wing Heritage Foundation, is godawful. It is just better than what we had before.
Let a doctor explain the PSA tests to you.
6
Oh the joys of Black lung disease, with OSHA and other regulatory bodies decimated, little or no medical insurance and no chance to move to a cleaner safer job now! This people got what they deserved. They voted in and inflicted the country an incompetent and malignant fool and now we all have to pay for it. They would rather continue in jobs that will lead to their premature deaths rather than take advantage of the retraining programs in alternative safe and clean energy industries that are the norm in the industrialized world, as the Democrats have proposed and encouraged. You have been had and I'm very sorry for your children and families, but not for you.
12
Black lung disease and silicosis come from underground mining. Surface mining doesn't lead to it. The coal industry should switch to surface mining. It is doing so to some extent anyway, but this should be complete and rapid.
Indeed, lets tear up the Earth's surface and and destroy the landscape while we burn coal to pollute the air & water
3
My Father worked in the coal mines in Scotland as a teenager, he died at 56 years of age from lung cancer.
I visited his home village a few years ago and where coal mines once devastated lives and the landscape they are now covered by lush green fields
Ironically the fields back onto Trumps golf course.
It is time we all recognized that coal is a killer to those who mine it and those who inhale it.
Let's create alternative jobs in mining areas in clean energy by having enterprise zones that make parts for clean energy, windmills, solar panels , inverters etc.
15
Who is more stupid? Trump's satraps who work at deregulating the coal industry or local officials who advise miners that it is okay to go underground without worry about the deadly effects of black lung disease.
If these politicians had any courage, they would carefully tell the miners that they are best advised to seek re-training as solar tile installers. If Democrats were in charge, there would be a program to pay for the re-training.
4
Wasn't this part of the plan?
Isn't this Trump's plan in action to "make America great again" by dooming another generation to death by black lung disease mining his "clean, beautiful coal"? I think if one were really interested in making America great - again or otherwise - it would be better to educate people to compete in the modern world rather than enabling them to waste away, trapped in an industrial age long since dead.
12
The more coal miners die early from Black Lung, the less Social Security and Medicare and Medicaid needs to be paid out, so it is indeed the plan.
3
You call it Black Lung, traditionalists that you are.
I call it The Conservative Curse, Trump's Revenge, The Ignorant, Unthinking, Despicable's Reward.
This 'storming back' of which you speak is born of greed and lawlessness at the Top of the Right and willful, other-blaming stupidity at the bottom.
Yeah, its heartless and certainly bad form to blame victims, but I learned it watching Republicans and the NRA zombie army responding to our latest government-approved school massacre.
I live in Ohio, home of (the executive offices of) America's Largest Shareholder-Owned Coal Company. The offices are up here because heroic capitalists know its best to be as far away from the actual coal as possible.
They know they can rely on Republicans and their victims in the mines to resist every attempt at mine safety. They can pay off politicians at a Koch-like rate to thunder on about "costly and burdensome over-regulation" and against the party that actually cares about miners, their communities and their well-being.
On the rare occasion that doesn't work, they just pay off the corrupt inspectors who represent the government despised by miners everywhere, and count on McConnell, Trump and Ryan to obstruct any and all enforcement acts.
So, we get the latest, 29-dead, Massey Energy coal disaster, we get bitter "get government off my Medicaid" red states, and we get the new black lung.
It is hard to feel bad for people who work so hard to ruin their own lives. Yet I do.
18
Yeah - MAGA alright.
4
This issue should have been at the forefront during the 2017 campaign instead of Hillary's nothingburger email server. The Democrats dropped the ball. I don't remember anything that spoke to this at the time. The Democrats should have at least responded with the original NPR findings after Trump's "beautiful clean coal" speech.
5
Dear Deus
You must have been busy elsewhere.
Not only did Hillary put coal miners, and coal communities at the forefront of her campaign on occasion, she offered concrete commitments.
She promised social supports for unemployed minors. She offered training to help them find better paying, safer, healthier careers. She offered concerted environmental enforcement and federal aid to clean up communities and their ruined environs.
Why would she do all this you ask? Because she saw what we all see now, even the dastardly Republicans, although they continue to pretend it isn't true: Coal is an industry in rapid decline; coal is unhealthy; coal is destructive; coal is an unreliable source of employment.
Of course, being Hillary, she said the truth out loud. And she was crucified for it. She's the reason for "beautiful clean coal", she's the focus of the monthly reports of astounding growth in coal production and employment.
She is the only candidate who actually cared about and offered meaningful support to coal miners and their families.
And she was crucified for it, over and over and over again.
I used to think it was Republicans and, honestly, stupid miners who did the crucifying. Now I see it was also people like you, who couldn't be bothered to pay attention or speak out.
13
If you didn't remember you were either not paying any attention or getting your news from Breitbart and other faux news sources.
The Democrats did not drop the ball on this and certainly Hillary did not.
Hillary came to West Virginia and was booed when she talked about her plans to make a better future in coal country than dying of black lung or mine collapses from coal mining magnates maliciously disregarding all safety measures.
4
Traitor Trump and Slimey Pruitt are making America sicker than ever. But that's OK. They've got the likes of "Joe Manchin, a "Democrat in Name Only," on their side, supported by the ignorant masses of Virginia and West Virginia, who ride around in the broken down pickup trucks with confederate flags stuck on their bumpers, and "Don't Tread On Me" license plates. Their phoney "toughness" still ain't gonna save 'em.
11
They're deplorable, aren't they?
The irony is that West Virginia broke away from the traitor state Virginia because it did not want to become a confederate traitor. It seems West Virginians are not even taught their own state's history.
They also have forgotten whose side they are on, Mother Jones, and the fight to unionize the coal mines to protect coal miners. Now they side with the mine owning monsters like Massey who disregard safety provisions and let miners die and pal around with Trump.
Americans vote for comrade trump, eat coal for comrade trump and die for comrade trump, comrade trump is the pied piper of madeness.
8
They voted for coal Trump!
4
Sadly, those poor folks haven't the faintest notion as to how the man they elected as POTUS has revealed himself as their biggest enemy. Cutting back coal dust regulations is just one more of the many protections for ordinary citizens that T...p has damaged or dismantled altogether by his appointing as Secretary those with great enmity toward their departments.
As he would say: Sad!
10
Protecting your workers should be part of the costs of doing business Yes? add it to the price for safety.
2
This emerging epidemic is a national embarrassment, a canary in the coal mine of Trump deregulation. We can expect rising infant mortality, more cancers from contaminated public water supplies, more asthma from industrial discharge into the atmosphere, and countless other Victorian era diseases of exposures to pollution as this new era of deregulation gets rolling.
Welcome to your Trump-branded future.
4
Except that all the increase in black lung disease happened before Trump took office, and long before any changes in regulation that he may, or may not, propose.
I can imagine Trump saying to miners the same things he says to football players: you knew the risks you should be grateful to have this job.
3
He said that to the widow of a dead soldier too.
Class act!
1
Given that this study covered 2013-2017, the headline about Trump is somewhat misleading.
5
Not really. Trump has enthusiastically encouraged "clean coal". That, along with the rest of his vast library of lies, will feed his base until they die premature deaths. It is on Trump now, and no one else. Those miners who are ignorant enough to voluntarily work in a lethal environment have no one to blame but themselves. Those who were conned by Trump and their megalomaniacal bosses deserve redress. Granted, they are not the most educated or open-mined critical thinkers around, but we supposedly have government that might guide them. Not so much indeed!
4
This is anything but a new issue. For decades, coal miners have been aware that, without proper protection, they would succumb to this fatal disease. The OWNERS of the mines fed them propaganda that everything appropriate was being done and that whatever threatened this now-marginalized, polluting industry also threatened their livelihoods. All the while, the OWNERS and OPERATORS were getting rich on the lives of their workers.
NO GOVERNMENT INTERVENTION, except during the Obama years, was successfully introduced to protect the miners, to retrain them and to shut down this abomination.
Anyone VOLUNTARILY exposing themselves to drugs, cigarettes and cigars, coal dust, alcohol, etc. deserves what he/she gets and, in my opinion, should be denied healthcare for disease-related issues. Those who were sold a bill of goods should be able to see redress, but that will not restore their lives. This Administration, and their comrades-in-arms, the mine owners/operators, should be blamed. We establish and empower governments to prevent such things; when they abrogate their responsibilities for personal or political gain, they should be severely prosecuted. Do you hear that, Mr. "clean coal" Trump?
6
This "liberal" says that the miners "deserve what he/she gets" and "should be denied health care".
Unlike pregnancy, you can be a' little' fascist. So if Obama gets lung cancer or COPD he should be denied treatment because he should have known better? Seems harsh. And what about the rest of us failed and weak individuals?
Yea boy, make coal great again, kill a miner. Wake up folks, demand better protection.
4
Can't wait to see how the resurgence of Black Lung Disease will be spun. But hey, keep rolling back those regulations, and reducing Miner's accessibility to Health Care. This should work out great for the funeral industry.
All I can say, is "All that Winning."
4
In the early 1990's Kentucky Governor Paul Patton , a man familiar with the coal industry, changed the criteria for claiming black lung benefits, saving coal operators a bundle on disability insurance premiums. The joke was that Patton had cured black lung with the stroke of a pen.
Governor Bevin has doubled down on this method of creating revenue by changing the criteria for medical coverage for the poor and needy. It doesn't matter if you are sick and dying, if you are not employed, even in parts of Kentucky where there are no jobs and there are many, you are out of luck...unless of course you are agreeable to picking up garbage along the roadside or some other worthy occupation determined by your betters.(aluminum cans are getting hard to find)
7
Oops! How's that "Bring Back Coal" working for you now?
8
Mining industries will use every means at their disposal to maximize productivity, with or without safety concerns for workers. WV senatorial candidate Don Blankenship's (remember this coal executive prosecuted for criminal negligence in a mine accident?) exhortation to run coal as the answer to slowdowns in production tells us everything we need to know about Big Coal's worker health priorities. How will Senator Blankenship deal with energy policy, mine safety, public health questions?
Let's give these miners the medical care they have more than earned before thinking about anything else. Then let's say goodbye to coal mining.
3
But this is what they want, and when they were protected from this they complained so that someone with no moral issues to stop him wants to have mining again. What a backward step we are taking in America, in all ways, thanks to dishonest attention grabbing Donald Trump. Sadly these people seem incapable of realizing which side they should be on. Most people can do more than one thing...if they try.
19
Is there any correlation between black lung disease and the incidence of coal miners smoking tobacco products (cigars, cigarettes)? Seems like a logical factor to study along with exposure to coal dust.
Trump does not care about the health of coal workers or even their employment. His focus is on their votes and the wealth of their employers, typically heavy Republican contributors.
6
Smoking does not cause coal dust pneumoconiosis. It can certainly exacerbate the symptoms, but it doesn't put coal dust in the lung tissue
5
All of these cause respiratory disease, be it black lung or carcinoma. If you have seen any of the many museum exhibits of human body dissections, you will note that most have "black lungs", an they died from that. Most are of Asian origin where there were no pollution controls. The evidence could not be more clear - pollutants kill! So do alcohol, cigarettes, chewing tobacco and drugs. Stupid is as stupid does. The information is out there. There is NO EXCUSE!
2
Then the tobacco companies will suffer! We can't possibly cause the richer than rich to loose a few precious $$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$! How will the pay for their newer, more better yachts, jets, castles and grand bunkers for when the nations destroy each other? Then they come out into a new pure world and rule it with their servants (slaves) and robots.
2
Best plan of action - quit mining coal. People who live in these regions either need to relocate to an area where jobs exist or stay where they are and live below the poverty level. In some areas there just aren't ways to make a decent living.
5
As the descendent of Appalachian coal miners, I was puzzled by the romanticization of coal mining in the Trump campaign. It is brutal, dirty work that cuts lives short. My grandfather did everything in his power to escape the coal mines. He joined the navy, despite not knowing how to swim, because as he said, "at least I'll die clean." People in these coal towns want to keep the mines open because it is the only way they know to have work and keep the community going. They deserve jobs that don't shorten lives or make them a misery. Hilary Clinton, for all her flaws, spoke of bringing clean energy jobs to coal country. I hope it happens someday.
52
No one "deserves" a job. You earn a job by justifying why others should pay you a salary.
2
Grew up near Pennsylvania coal mines.....totally agree
2
People certainly deserve opportunities.
2
I have a coal stove in my basement which I used until I noticed black coming out of my nose when I blew it. The entire basement was covered by a layer of coal dust. You don't need studies or doctors to know when black is coming out of your body it's bad. Some of the proponents of coal should be forced to spend at several hours or days or months in the coal mines to see if it's safe. They don't seem to know or care. It's not their lungs. Its the poor desperate people being exploited by a money driven industry without any concern for people's safety.
14
Look at the chart! Just after 1995 the rate goes straight up. What happened in 1995? The Republicans took over the Congress and essentially the federal government.
31
Change the name to Beautiful, clean coal disease. Problem solved.
19
Yes indeed, coal can be made clean. Believe me.
When it comes to protecting the environment, government regulation = government overreach, and coal country declared for decades that they were wholeheartedly against any measures that impeded King Coal. Now, they go to Federal clinics, seeking Federal help for the consequences of the absence of adequate worker protections.
West Virginia was once breathtakingly beautiful. King Coal has been careful to leave little strips alongside the interstates to mask the devastation of mountaintop removal, so that only the residents get to behold the price of artificially maintaining an outdated, dying industry: valleys filled and killed with mining debris, streams and aquifers as permanently poisoned as the lungs of the miners.
The canary in the coal mine died long ago, environmentally, economically, and health wise. In the past that was the sign to get out. But the coal industry successfully lobbied to keep going and now we see who is paying. It won't ever be the coal barons whose lungs are entirely pink and offshore bank accounts are fat. When the last coal miner is gone, the coal barons will be ready to move on to the solar and wind industries.
30
All head CEO's and owners of companies should be required to live to and close to, down wind and down stream from all of their polluting companies, plus their families.
2
Capitalism trumps caring for humans. It's an old story told by the millions of workers who have died trying to earn a living.
13
Two things to remember here. Black lung disease is never cured and it never goes away.
Which makes one wonder all the more why those who live in predominantly rural coal-mining areas voted for Donald Trump, who promised to send them back underground, while stripping them of any affordable health insurance that they might have already had -- and inevitably, would desperately need.
This is an American tragedy in the making.
12
As with so many things, this administration seems to believe that if you don't talk about it, it doesn't exist. It's encouraging that some of the coal industry execs have stated that they don't intend to roll back the higher standards regardless of what the "rules" are, some people get that no amount of "savings" is worth a person's life. This applies to some other controversial problems elsewhere.
3
It seems they wanted to dig up coal and may be now Trump can provide Obama care to help them?
10
I cannot muster any sympathy for these miners. They got what they wanted-fewer regulations and a resurgence of coal. Enjoy!
17
In the early 1970's I attended a seminar in West Virginia at which we were taught how to read pneumoconiosis (mineral dust disease) chest films in preparation for the "B" reader examination. One of our instructors, Kieth Morgan, then the ranking expert in the field, showed us an x-ray example of complicated coal-workers pneumoconiosis with the comment that it was now so rare that we would probably never see another. How sad that that isn't the case. Sadder still is the attempt to roll back the (clearly inadequate) Obama rule in the face of the rising prevalence of the disease.
16
Black Lung Disease = Environmental Racism.
When all the coal is finally gone, the remaining residents of these small Appalachian towns and hamlets will be left with polluted water, scarred lungs, and no health insurance.
They hard-working people deserve better.
6
"Environmental Racism" ... Really???
You should probably look up the definition of 'racism' again -- and then take another look at American History.
This is so sad that people are lied to and not given the information and the skills to evaluate that information by the coal industry and their GOP governmental toadies. People keep voting for their own misery and deaths.
14
Yea, but at they got to flip the bird at "The Establishment"
2
Attentive readers will consider the following critically important facts about the graph (which informs the article):
"Per 1,000 working coal miners in Kentucky, Virginia and West Virginia"
"Data represents a five-year moving average among underground-working coal miners with at least 25 years on the job."
Numerate readers would want the journalist to provide more detail from the study, because it is clear that a shift in the denominator (current workers) could dramatically skew this metric. It is not clear whether this is the total black lung cases among current workers with >25 years mining divided by the total number of all workers, regardless of tenure. However, we need to be wary as their are *two* sources listed for that single graph, which suggests that someone pulled numerator data from one source and denominator data from another source. There is nothing wrong with that per se, but it opens the door to apples-to-oranges errors.
3
The denominator is per 1,000, the chart is not misleading. If you have 1,000 miners then you have 3.7 cases at the low point, 7.4 cases if you had 2,000 miners. It really is quite standard and quite simple.
I would not have commented but for some reason this misleading remark was a reader's pick.
3
We are living threw a medieval period. All coal mining should cease until a solution is found. Company continues to pay salaries providing motivation to get technology in place to ensure that mines are dust free. Hiring should cease.
3
Hw to clean up the mines? Move the pit owners office up to the coal face and make sure he works there the same amount of time that the average worker does every day. No special treatment, no masks or filters that the workers don’t have. One of two things will happen, the mine will close or working conditions will get a whole lot better.
34
And the same kind of access to medical care.
3
There is no filter or mask, short of a self contained breathing unit, that will protect against black lung. If dust is fine enough to enter your lungs it can't be caught by a filter or mask.
Self contained breathing units are expensive and could add ten cents a ton to production costs. The Horror, the horror!!!
Better to suffocate miners. There's always more standing outside the mine gate waiting to replace those too sick to work.
5
Trump words of wisdon, Aug 2017: "We've ended the war on beautiful, clean coal. and it's just been announced that a second, brand new coal mine where they're going to take out clean coal — meaning they're taking out coal, they're going to clean it — is opening in the state of Pennsylvania."
Yes, clean coal, using the miner's lungs as living (for now) filters to absorb the toxins.
Sounds like a solid plan to me.
44
While the coal industry has suffered from the "go green" attitude it still has a big problem. It feels that the bottom line is more important then the people that get that bottom line for them. Coal is still a viable source of energy but the miners that bring it up need to be protected from the mine owners until the day comes when the last coal mine shuts down.
15
Coal miners used to have a union to fight for them against the company. Now most miners are scabs...
2