Vol. 71/No. 39      October 22, 2007

Black lung is a preventable disease caused by the inhalation of coal dust. Miners fought in the late 1960s to get the disease recognized as job-related. Tens of thousands of miners in West Virginia went on strike in 1969 to win black lung benefits. They also won laws to control dust levels in the mines. Black lung can be eradicated by reducing dust levels through ventilation, water sprays, and respirators.

Due to the miners’ fight, black lung rates decreased from 33 percent in the 1970s to 5 percent in the 1990s. In 1997, 4 percent of miners with at least 25 years on the job showed signs of black lung. But data from 2005 and 2006 shows that figure has increased to 9 percent. The rate among miners with 20-24 years experience more than doubled over the last decade.

“I actually think the numbers are higher than that,” said Sparkle Bonds, of the Virginia Black Lung Association, in an interview. She pointed to low participation in surveys and the fact that only working miners were studied.

“We are seeing younger coal miners—some in their early 40s—who have complicated black lung,” said Bonds. She said coal companies are “going after smaller seams of coal and cutting more rock.” Rock dust, or silica, “is more dangerous than coal dust.”

Nearly 2,300 miners died of black lung in West Virginia alone from 1992 to 2002. Dr. Robert Cohen, medical director of the National Coalition of Black Lung Respiratory Disease Clinics, reported that since 2001, the government has found 437 cases of progressive massive fibrosis, the most advanced form of black lung.

Cohen called the report “alarming.” United Mine Workers of America (UMWA) president Cecil Roberts said it was a “shocking and disturbing trend that must be investigated and must be reversed.”

The Louisville Courier-Journal reported in June that black lung death rates in Kentucky rose 34 percent between 1998 and 2004.

Danny Hall, a former miner in Kentucky, had to have a lung transplant. Describing the high dust levels where he worked, he told the Journal that after 10 minutes “you couldn’t breathe through a mask. It was clogged up.”

The paper interviewed former Virginia miner Mark McCowan, 43. He said the bosses only worry about dust levels when an inspection is due. “You can eat all [the dust] you want until it comes time for a dust sample,” he said. “The record production I give ‘em has shortened my life on this earth.”

Roberts said that either the existing dust standard is not strong enough or is not being strictly enforced. “It’s likely to be the result of a combination of both factors,” he said. The UMWA supports a NIOSH proposal to halve the level of allowable dust in coal mines.

Some industry officials deny the coal bosses’ responsibility or claim the disease can’t be eradicated. Bill Caylor of the Kentucky Coal Association told the Journal, “A lot of times they’re more disabled by cigarette smoking than black lung.”

A former NIOSH official said, “I hate to admit that there is a human lung cost of doing business, but it’s possible that’s what we may have to accept.”
 
 
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