Articles Tagged with ''black lung''

Chester Fike was just in his 30s when he was diagnosed with black lung. As the disease progressed, the West Virginia coal miner was eventually so incapacitated that a simple walk with his family was impossible. In the summer of 2012, four months after a double lung transplant raised hopes for a second chance, Fike lost his fight for life at 60.

The following was posted on Saturday, Dec.  6: One hundred seven years ago today in Monongah, West Virginia, 362 coal miners – many of them teenage boys — went to work and never came home. That morning, an explosion ripped through two connected mines.

Congressional Democrats have introduced a measure designed to streamline the process for miners filing benefits claims under the Black Lung Benefits Act – and to help miners overcome the “resource disparities” between themselves and the coal companies who use legal maneuvering to block the miners’ claims.

New respirable dust regulations that are intended to reduce the incidence of black lung disease among miners take effect today, over the objections of the National Mining Association (NMA), which calls them “one-size-fits-all approach” that won’t deliver real worker protections.

An impact inspection at the Rhino Eastern LLC's Eagle Mine 3 in Wyoming County, West Virginia, found conditions that put miners at risk of developing black lung disease and that increased the potential for deadly explosions, underscoring the importance of mine safety vigilance and the need for continued improvements in controlling coal dust.

The National Mining Association (NMA) has asked a federal appeals court to review the Mine Safety and Health Administration's (MSHA) regulation for the control of coal dust in underground coal mines, contending that the rule “embodies fundamental legal and technical infirmities in its scope, foundation and framework.”

The U.S. Department of Labor's Mine Safety and Health Administration (MSHA) has released a final rule to lower miners' exposure to respirable coal mine dust in all underground and surface coal mines.

Among the many items on the federal government’s recently-released fall regulatory agenda are nine belonging to the Mine Safety and Health Administration. Two of them are in the final stage of rulemaking.

A physician at Johns Hopkins Medical Institutions who is paid – by coal companies – ten times the amount to interpret x-rays that other doctors charge for the service has not found a single case of severe black lung disease in more than 1,500 x-rays – findings used to deny miners black lung benefits.

 “Black Lung Research in Morgantown: Impact on a Nation of Miners,” a special exhibit by NIOSH, opened at the Morgantown Museum in Morgantown, West Virginia, on October 22 and will run until December 14.