Worst form of black lung is roaring back

[theHandpuppet]

The Charleston Gazette
Monday, September 15, 2014
Worst form of black lung is roaring back
By Ken Ward Jr., Staff writer

CHARLESTON, W.Va. — The worst type of black lung disease now affects a larger share of Appalachian coal miners than at any time since the 1970s, government researchers warned in a new data analysis published Monday.

Experts at the National Institute for Occupational Safety and Health said the finding highlights the resurgence of a deadly worker disease that was once close to being eliminated across the coalfields.

“Each of these cases is a tragedy and represents a failure among all those responsible for preventing this severe disease,” the NIOSH researchers wrote in a letter published Monday in the American Journal of Respiratory and Critical Care Medicine.

The letter cited NIOSH data showing that by 2012, the rate of the most severe form of black lung had reached 3.2 percent of workers in the Central Appalachian coalfields of Southern West Virginia and Eastern Kentucky, a nearly tenfold increase over the disease prevalence 15 years earlier.

- See more at: http://www.wvgazette.com/article/20140915/GZ01/140919507/1419#sthash.SgNzv6wy.dpuf

[packman]

1. I need help with this -

I know that the Black Lung benefits date back to the time the gov. considered coal mining a vital industry, but WHY is the gov. involved in the health benefits program of coal miners? Seems like this should be an employer/employee issue. Same with the Railroad Benefit acts, which it seems was the precursor to the Soc. Sec. Act.

[greatlaurel]

2. Here is a link to a document that describes the program and the history behind the legislation.

http://appalachiancitizenslaw.files.wordpress.com/2010/01/overview-of-federal-black-lung-benefits-program.pdf


The Federal Black Lung Benefits
Act

In 1969, as part of a federal mine safety law in response to the
Farmington mine disaster, the federal black lung benefits program
was created. In creating this law the Congress recognized that there
were a significant number of coal miners who were totally disabled
due to pneumoconiosis and that there were survivors of coal miners
whose deaths were due to this disease.

The stated purpose of this law is “to provide benefits to coal miners
who are totally disabled due to pneumoconiosis and to the surviving
dependents of miners whose death was due to such disease; and to
ensure that in the future adequate benefits are provided to coal
miners and their dependents in the event of their death or total
disability due to pneumoconiosis.”

The Act is located at 30 U.S.C. Section 901. The regulations are
located at 20 CFR Sections 718 and 725.

[greatlaurel]

3. Black Lung is a hideous disease.

The failure to regulate the mines to protect the miners' health is just another side "benefit" of the deregulation fever that has swept through the US allowing corporations to increase profits drastically while shifting all the costs onto their employees and the middle class.

[theHandpuppet]

4. Tennant would back Rockefeller bill on black lung; Capito mum

Capito mum on helping miners with black lung? Gee, what a surprise! NOT.

The Charleston Gazette
Thursday, September 18, 2014
Tennant would back Rockefeller bill on black lung; Capito mum
By David Gutman, Staff writer and Ken Ward Jr.

A new bill would make broad changes to the federal black lung program, intending to make it easier for miners suffering from the disease to receive the government benefits they are owed.

The bill, from Sen. Jay Rockefeller, D-W.Va., and Sen. Robert Casey, D-Pa., was unveiled Thursday and will be officially introduced after November’s elections.

With a polarized and unproductive Congress, the bill has little chance of passage this year, a fact Casey acknowledged.

“If it doesn’t work then, we’ll start over again in 2015,” Casey said in a conference call with reporters....

- See more at: http://www.wvgazette.com/article/20140918/GZ01/140919234/1419#sthash.BrgRsKXq.dpuf