Current Events > Black lung is back

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https://nyti.ms/2CcuFWC

Federal investigators this month identified the largest cluster of advanced black lung cases ever officially recorded.

More than 400 coal miners frequenting three clinics in southwestern Virginia between 2013 and 2017 were found to have complicated black lung disease, an extreme form characterized by dense masses of scar tissue in the lungs.

The cluster, identified following an investigation by National Public Radio, adds to a growing body of evidence that a new black lung epidemic is emerging in central Appalachia, even as the Trump administration begins to review Obama-era coal dust limits.

The severity of the disease among miners at the Virginia clinics knocked us back on our heels, said David J. Blackley, an epidemiologist at the National Institute for Occupational Safety and Health, who led the research published in the Journal of the American Medical Association. It was equally troubling, he said, that nearly a quarter of the miners with complicated black lung disease had been on the job fewer than 20 years.

Across the coal belt in Kentucky, West Virginia, and Virginia, theres an unacceptably large number of younger miners who have end-stage disease and the only choice is to get a lung transplant or wait it out and die, Dr. Blackley said.

Scientists have linked the new wave of lung disease to miners breathing in more silica dust, the likely result of a decades-long shift toward mining thinner coal seams that require cutting into the surrounding rock. Silica dust from pulverized rock can damage lungs faster than coal dust alone.

Modern machinery, insufficient training for workers, and longer work hours may also contribute to increased dust exposure, experts say.

Black lung, a chronic disease caused by breathing in coal mine dust, declined precipitously between the early 1970s and late 1990s, following new health and safety rules put in place by the 1969 Coal Act. The legislation for the first time established airborne dust limits in coal mines and set up a health monitoring program for working miners, offering free chest x-rays every five years.

But by 2000, black lung was on the rise again. An advanced form of the disease, rarely seen in the mid-1990s, made an especially dramatic comeback.

The upward trend in severe black lung disease has been clear for some time, but what were really learning now is the magnitude of the problem, said Carl Werntz, an associate professor of occupational medicine at West Virginia University, who treats miners in Morgantown.

In addition to the Virginia cluster, Dr. Blackleys team previously found 60 miners with complicated black lung at a single clinic in eastern Kentucky. Overall, investigators have confirmed nearly 500 cases in just four clinics over the past four years. NPR, which began a wider survey of clinics in 2016, has unofficially recorded nearly 2,000 cases over a similar time period.

Those figures are far higher than the federal governments voluntary screening program for working miners, which recorded fewer than 100 cases of complicated black lung disease nationwide between 2011 and 2016. Researchers note that the true extent of black lung disease among current and former coal miners remains unclear.

To combat black lung disease, the Obama administration in 2014 issued a new coal dust rule. It lowered dust exposure limits for the first time in four decades, increased sampling frequency and required the use of real-time personal dust monitoring devices.

The rule was challenged by coal industry groups as costly and overly burdensome. A federal appeals court upheld it in 2016.

Last December, the Trump administration announced a retrospective review of the four-year-old regulation as part of a broader rule-cutting agenda, a move that alarmed mine safety advocates and medical experts.

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But mothers will fight tooth and nail they have the hardest job in the world
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Black Lung was a local rapper I used to hang with in my area. I was supposed to get a quarter from him but he only gave me 5 so we haven't talked since.
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https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=N6QLMUwVBeY
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The future of coal is certainly a bleak one

Antifar posted...

To combat black lung disease, the Obama administration in 2014 issued a new coal dust rule. It lowered dust exposure limits for the first time in four decades, increased sampling frequency and required the use of real-time personal dust monitoring devices.

The rule was challenged by coal industry groups as costly and overly burdensome. A federal appeals court upheld it in 2016.

Last December, the Trump administration announced a retrospective review of the four-year-old regulation as part of a broader rule-cutting agenda, a move that alarmed mine safety advocates and medical experts.

JFC. Why did coal miners think he had their interests at heart again

But is their company making more money? That's what is important.
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definitely prefer white lung

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BUIaj338JoE
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iClockwork posted...

But mothers will fight tooth and nail they have the hardest job in the world

I grew up in West Virginia. Not in the coal fields; but let me explain the mentality at some level.

As a corollary, let me state that I am not a huge fan of the extraction industries. West Virginia has produced huge amounts of coal, timber, and natural gas; yet, the state is very poor. The coal companies outright ran huge chunks of the state in the early part of the 20th century, enabled by the state and federal government. There were labor wars and rebellions, and things did improve. The government of the state did not plan for the future or a post coal-economy. The extraction industries also did little as well. The wealth generated by the industries went out of the state and to politicians. Now, the state is losing its one major source of income, coal, and has no plan B. The coal severance tax funds the state government -- look now, the public school teachers are on strike right now due to pay and benefit problems. The state us rural, rugged, and has poor infrastructure. The largest city has like 50,000 residents. It is hemorrhaging population and is devoured by pain killers and heroin.

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Coal mining jobs pay well. They have union benefits, and they are the only source of good paying jobs in huge swaths of the state. Entire communities depend on coal being mined. If the mines shut down, towns fail and counties fail -- possibly the state without robust coal severance tax collections. Coal mining jobs in a lot of places in West Virginia are the only work available that lets you feed your family, visit Myrtle Beach for a week, pay for your kid's college, and hope for a better life for your kids. The miners and their families *know* the risks for the most part. They know them *well*. From the Battle of Matewan, to the Monongah Disaster, and the Sago Mine Disaster.

What are the alternatives? You can't poof in 80,000 dollar white collar tech jobs to Man, West Virginia overnight. You can't get an investment bank to setup in Beckley overnight. Amazon isn't going to lcate a cooperate headquarters in Williamson anytime soon. The alternative to coal mining for many of the miners is either poverty, or pray for retraining and finding a job 7 states away. Maybe they should retrain and move, but you can at least see the logic for wanting to defend their mining jobs in this context.
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