Black Lung
As Calls For Action On Black Lung Disease Grow, Regulators Show Little Indication Of Change
This article was originally published by Ohio Valley ReSource. Harold Sturgill was disabled by black lung disease when he was 58 years old. Now he advocates for disabled miners. “When it comes to the mining companies, and it comes to the worker, it’s still all about production,” Sturgill said. “They could […]
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Black Lung Patient Fights for Miner Benefits in His Final Days
Robert Bailey was a coal miner for 36 years. He began working in McDowell County, and after it became too hard to breathe, he retired from a mine owned by Patriot Coal in Boone County. Bailey first told his story with WVPB in June 2014. He shared his final story with Inside […]
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Still Fighting: These Widows’ Stories Show Larger Effects of Black Lung Epidemic
Nancy and Rich Potter had the kind of marriage that made other couples jealous. He’d take her on spontaneous trips. She’d wear her Daisy Dukes just for him. Joyce Birman said her late husband, George, made a terrible first impression. It was his apology for it that made her fall […]
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Amid Black Lung Surge Pulmonary Rehab Brings Hope To Disabled Miners
Marcy Tate grew up in southwest Virginia in a coal mining family. “My father-in-law was a coal miner, my father was a coal miner, my grandfather was a coal miner, my great-grandfather was a coal miner,” she said. Tate knew what black lung disease looked like.In 2003, her father-in-law passed […]
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Data Dives And Shoe Leather: How NPR’s Howard Berkes Investigated Appalachia’s Black Lung Epidemic
This week, NPR’s Howard Berkes released an investigation into federal records that show more than 2,000 coal miners are now suffering from the most severe form of black lung disease, Progressive Massive Fibrosis, or PMF. Berkes found that despite clear warnings two decades ago, the mining industry and government regulators did little […]
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