black lung
cmonforton | October 4, 2017President Trump’s nominee to head the Labor Department’s Mine Safety and Health Administration (MSHA) appeared today before a Senate committee for a confirmation hearing. David Zatezalo answered questions about the epidemic of black lung cases, an increase in mine worker fatalities, the need for safety assistance for small mine operators, and more. Zatezalo began his career in 1974 as a UMWA coal miner and most recently served as chairman of Rhino Resources.
I watched the webcast of Zatezalo's confirmation hearing. The nominee noted his experience managing 39 different coal mines in the U.S.…
kkrisberg | July 11, 2017At the Intercept, Avi Asher-Schapiro reports on a new insurance plan that Uber is offering its drivers that could help them recoup wages and cover medical expenses if they’re injured on the job. Asher-Schapiro notes that while some have described the Uber insurance plan — which workers buy by setting aside 3.75 cents per mile — as a form of workers’ compensation, it hardly fits the bill. In fact, in documents obtained by the Intercept, Uber explicitly states that the insurance plan isn’t workers’ comp. He writes:
Compared to traditional workers’ compensation insurance, Uber’s policy…
cmonforton | July 7, 2017I started my post yesterday with my version of the famous quote from the film Casablanca:
“I'm shocked, shocked to find an epidemic of black lung disease.”
It was my reaction to the latest story by NPR’s Howard Berkes about nearly 2,000 recently diagnosed cases of the most severe form of black lung disease. They’ve been diagnosed over the last six years among coal miners in central Appalachia.
I gave five reasons to explain why I'm not shocked by the epidemic.
#1: Mine operators were allowed to expose miners to concentrations of respirable coal dust and silica that were known to be too high…
cmonforton | July 6, 2017I felt a little like Claude Rains (as Capt. Louis Renault) in the film Casablanca. He's the actor with the famous line "I'm shocked, shocked to find that gambling is going on here." On Sunday my neighbor asked me: “What do you think about all those coal miners with black lung?”
“Shocked, shocked,” I was tempted to say, but I’m not the least bit shocked.
My neighbor was referring to the latest story by NPR’s Howard Berkes about nearly 2,000 cases of progressive massive pulmonary fibrosis (PMF) diagnosed in the last six years among Appalachian coal miners. Two thousand cases is a hefty number…
kkrisberg | March 21, 2017At the Sacramento Bee, Ryan Lillis and Jose Luis Villegas report on the effects that Trump’s immigration crackdown is having on California farms, writing that fear of deportation is spreading throughout the state’s farming communities. While many farmworkers believe immigration raids are inevitable, farm operators, many who voted for Trump, hope the president will bring more water to the region and keep immigration officials off their fields. Lillis and Villegas write:
Fear is everywhere. The night before, the local school board became one of the first in California to declare its campuses a…
kkrisberg | February 7, 2017At the American Prospect, Justin Miller interviews Obama-era Labor Department officials on the future of worker protections under President Trump. Miller takes a behind-the-scenes peek at what it took to pass some of the Obama administration’s key labor rules, discusses the nomination of Andy Puzder to become the nation’s next labor secretary, and addresses rumors that the new administration might be gunning to abolish some Labor Department divisions entirely. Miller writes:
Not surprisingly, Obama’s top labor alums express pride in the many worker protections they were able to put in place…
cmonforton | December 21, 2016I’m still haunted by the voice on my car radio. It was one of those “NPR moments.”
We were parked at our destination, but there was no way we were getting out of the car. National Public Radio’s (NPR) Howard Berkes was reporting from eastern Kentucky and interviewing Mackie Branham. The 39 year old coal miner gasped for air over every word. Chills ran up my spine. Branham's lungs were hardened by coal mine dust. It was painful to listen yet the perfect punctuation for a powerful story.
Berkes’ reported findings of an NPR investigation of the incidence of the most severe form of coal workers’…
kkrisberg | December 20, 2016At the Center for Public Integrity, Jim Morris reports on working conditions at the nation’s oil refineries, writing that more than 500 refinery incidents have been reported to the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency since 1994, calling into question the adequacy of EPA and federal labor rules designed to protect workers as well as the public. Morris begins the story with John Moore, who in 2010 was working at a Tesoro Corporation oil refinery north of Seattle — he writes:
Up the hill from Moore, in the Naphtha Hydrotreater unit, seven workers were restoring to service a bank of heat…
kkrisberg | December 6, 2016At Stat, Eric Boodman reports on whether a Trump administration might deprive miners of compensation for disabilities related to black lung disease.
In particular, Boodman examines a little-known provision in the Affordable Care Act (ACA) that shifted the burden of proof from miners and onto mining companies. In other words, if miners had spent at least 15 years underground and can prove a respiratory disability, it’s assumed to be an occupational illness. However, if the ACA is repealed in full — as candidate Trump promised on the campaign trail — that provision would go away as well, making…
cmonforton | November 11, 2016I’m not easily shocked to learn about injustice against workers. But my jaw hit the floor in fall 2013 when I read Chris Hamby’s 2013 Pulitzer Prize winning series on the lengths to which coal companies go to dispute that miners have coal-dust related lung disease (a.k.a. black lung.) My jaw hit the floor a second time when Hamby (then with the Center for Public Integrity) exposed that Johns Hopkins University and its employee Dr. Paul Wheeler where star players on the coal operators’ teams.
The families of Steve Day, 67, and Junior McCoy Barr, 79, have now filed a lawsuit against the…
kkrisberg | November 8, 2016At The New York Times, Dan Barry reports on the Hispanic hotel workers who are becoming a powerful political force in Las Vegas. In particular, the story focuses on the 56,000-member Culinary Union, whose membership is more than half Hispanic. The story is told through the eyes of Celia Vargas, 57, a guest room attendant at a hotel along the famous Vegas Strip — Barry writes:
Despite their name tags, guest room attendants are anonymous. They go unnoticed by many as they push their 300-pound carts to the next room, and the next.
A glimpse of what is expected of these attendants can be found at…
cmonforton | August 12, 2016It wasn’t the first time an industry made wild exaggerations about a proposed safety regulation, but one made by the coal industry in 2011 was a doozy. Now five years later, we have the data to show how big a doozy it really was.
The Mine Safety and Health Administration had proposed a new regulations to protect coal miners from black lung disease. The coal industry insisted that many of the nation's 1,500 coal mines would not be able to comply with a rule that would reduce cut in half the allowable concentrations of respirable coal dust in the miners' work environment.
Alliance Coal's vice…
kkrisberg | July 12, 2016Mining is one of the most dangerous jobs in America, with more than 600 workers dying in fatal workplace incidents between 2004 and the beginning of July. And many more miners die long after they’ve left the mines from occupational illnesses such as black lung disease, while others live with the debilitating aftermath of workplace injuries. Today, researchers know a great deal about the health risks miners face on the job, but some pretty big gaps remain.
Kristin Yeoman and her colleagues at the National Institute for Occupational Safety and Health (NIOSH) hope to begin closing that knowledge…
cmonforton | June 8, 2016When you retire, would you spend the time and the gas to drive 70 miles several times a week to your former worksite to ensure the company is following the law? The Huffington Post’s Dave Jamieson profiles a 62-year old Kentucky coal miner who does exactly that.
Flip Wilson worked as a coal miner for 40 years. He told Jamieson that over his career he didn’t know much about his safety rights and didn’t question unsafe practices. Jamieson writes:
“He obeyed the unspoken rule of every mine he worked in: The coal must flow, or you must go.”
Two years ago, Wilson was diagnosed with black lung…
cmonforton | January 26, 2016A three-judge panel of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the 11th Circuit upheld the Mine Safety and Health Administration’s (MSHA) regulation which is designed to better protect coal miners from developing black lung disease. The MSHA regulation was issued in April 2014, and shortly thereafter, the National Mining Association, Murray Energy, and others filed a lawsuit against it. The judges' opinion was published yesterday. (Thanks to Evan B. Smith at Devil in the Dust for alerting me to the decision.)
The industry asked the Court of Appeals to review a long list of legal arguments against the…
cmonforton | January 7, 2016**Update below (1/30/2016)
A new paper by NIOSH researchers explores the use of lung transplants for individuals with work-related pneumoconiosis, including black lung disease. Using data from the United Network for Organ Sharing (UNOS) for the period 1996-2014, Blackley and colleagues identified 47 lung-transplant cases in which the patient’s primary diagnosis was “coal workers’ pneumoconiosis” or pneumoconiosis unspecified.” Thirty four of the lung transplants (72%) were performed since 2008.
The medical costs for a bilateral lung transplant are substantial. In 2014, the average cost of…
lborkowski | December 31, 2015During the holiday season, Kim, Liz and I are taking a short break from blogging. We are posting some of our favorite posts from the past year. Here’s one of them, originally posted on July 27, 2015:
by Celeste Monforton, DrPH, MPH
The occupational health community, coal miners, their families and labor advocates are mourning the loss of physician Donald Rasmussen, 87.
For more than 50 years, he diagnosed and treated coal miners with work-related lung disease, first at the then Miners Memorial Hospital in Beckley, WV and later at his own black lung clinic. A lengthy story by John Blankenship…
kkrisberg | November 10, 2015Workers who get injured on the job already face significant challenges when trying to access the workers’ compensation system. But for workers who suffer from occupational illnesses related to chemical exposures — illnesses that can develop over long periods of time — the workers’ comp system is nearly useless, according to reporter Jamie Smith Hopkins at the Center for Public Integrity.
In another installment of the center’s eye-opening investigative series “Unequal Risk,” Hopkins explores the often insurmountable barriers that sick workers face — barriers so insurmountable that most people…
cmonforton | July 27, 2015[Updated below (8/3/15)]
The occupational health community, coal miners, their families and labor advocates are mourning the loss of physician Donald Rasmussen, 87.
For more than 50 years, he diagnosed and treated coal miners with work-related lung disease, first at the then Miners Memorial Hospital in Beckley, WV and later at his own black lung clinic. A lengthy story by John Blankenship in Beckley’s Register-Herald written two years ago profiled Dr. Rasmussen’s career.
“ In 1962, a young doctor from Manassa, Colorado, saw a help wanted advertisement in a medical journal needing doctors in…
kkrisberg | May 5, 2015The U.S. Department of Labor is proposing a new rule that would prohibit coal companies from withholding medical evidence from workers with black lung disease who are seeking compensation, reports Chris Hamby at the Center for Public Integrity.
In its proposed rule, the agency cited the case of coal miner Gary Fox as part of its justification. Fox’s story was also featured in the Center for Public Integrity’s Breathless and Burdened series, which investigated how coal companies undermine sick workers’ benefit claims. Hamby, who authored many of the Breathless and Burdened reports, writes that…