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Black Lung Disease

Black Lung Disease


Black lung disease is common amongst the coal miners, and it develops in the lungs of these miners due to inhaling the dust during coal mining. It is generally called or termed as: coal workers pneumoconiosis (CWP) or anthracosis. Coal miners end up getting this disease when they work for years in a particular coal mine and inhale the dust and fumes of coal, during their work in the mines. Miner's asthma, silicosis, coal workers pneumoconiosis or black lung is all dust diseases with similar symptoms. If the disease progresses, it can lead to a coal miner getting cancer as well.
There is a disease called Miner's Asthma. Doctors term a particular disease in the lung miner's asthma that explains coughing, breathlessness and spitting without any particular known reason. The doctors generally did not understand the problem or the reasons why such symptoms occurred. Later, the condition was called silicosis where silica was thought to occur in the coal mine dust.

As all other occupational diseases, black lung was man made and could therefore be prevented. In 1969, the US Congress ordered that black lung disease was prevented by the coal industry (UMWA, "Introduction to Black Lung Disease"). This monitoring program called dust monitoring was a chunk of the part of the effort that was being made in order to make coal mines a safer place and to help prevent diseases amongst the coal miners. Sample measurements had to be conducted and a coal dust level was set. However, samples were in most cases taken by the mining companies themselves and the miners were astounded about this (Weeks). Since the Ferderal Coal Mine Health and Safety Act of 1969, the average levels of have fallen from 8 mg to 2 mg per cubic meter. However, it is now estimated that 1500 former coal miners are dying as a result of black lung disease each year (Berkow).

Black lung disease is a result of inhalation of dust over the years. The color of the lungs changes from the normal pinkish color, which is healthy to a black color. Coal dust inhaled by the miner builds up within the lungs. The lungs after becoming thick, become scarred and thus the lungs become inefficient to supply oxygen to the blood flowing in the lungs.

Emphysema can also be attained by patients creating problems in the lungs by destroying the air sacs or alveolus in the lungs of the patient. The typical symptoms cause a person to not be able to breathe properly and can lead to heart stoppage. A coal miner's chest is checked through an X-Ray in order to see if the person has any dark spots on his X Ray – which show that the miner has been exposed to the dust of coal. This condition has no cure. It has just prevention strategies and in this case the coal miner is told not to work in the coal mine again in order to save his lungs. In the early stages of the disease, it is difficult to point out in the X Ray that the person would get such a disease.

Coal miners can prevent the disease of course by avoiding long term exposure to coal dust. However, they can also wear protective clothing.

In the early part of the 20th century, a claim was made that signified that due to improved and proper ventilation in the coal mines, this disease had been taken care of and it had been eliminated. The disease was only accepted in 1969 by the US experts, much later than was the case in Britain. In the coal mine act of 1969, the congress for the first time ordered the prevention of this disease. The congress also established the black lung benefits program to compensate victims of the disease. In 1977 a black lung trust fund was established. This fund is financed by taxes paid by all coal operators and is used to compensate those victims whose employers no longer existed. In addition it was dictated by law that coal companies were directly responsible for compensation and medical costs related for their black lung diseased workers.

However, this has resulted in the coal companies submitting a large amount of medical evidence in order to slow down approval processes and to confuse the victims. In the 1980s, samples were collected in different spectacular ways by the mining companies in order to cheat and confuse the authorities.

The United Mine Workers of America (UMWA) aims to make it easier for black lung disease victims to establish their rights. In 2001, the amount of medical evidence that could be submitted by either side (miner versus mining company) was limited by law and a higher impact was placed by physicians who are more familiar with the black lung disease condition (UMWA, "Diesel Particulate Matter Exposure of Underground Metal and Nonmetal Miners"). However, the decision to file these rules by law was a long debate with the National Mining Association (NMA) and the UMWA as major actors. National Mining Association made an appeal on 19th of January 2001, and the court then issued a decision regarding this appeal in June 2002. Details of the rules accepted in 2001 and 2002 can be found elsewhere (UMWA, "Diesel Particulate Matter Exposure of Underground Metal and Nonmetal Miners").

To conclude, the overall political problem was that regulated entities had to regulate themselves. This is of course a tremendous problem that could only be circumvented by the acts of particular organizations (UMWA).

Works cited

1. Berkow, Robert. The Merck Manual. 6th ed, 1992.
2. UMWA. "Diesel Particulate Matter Exposure of Underground Metal and Nonmetal Miners." Federal Register 66 (2001): 5706.
3. UMWA. "Introduction to Black Lung Disease." taken on February 20, 2007 from: http://www.umwa.org/blacklung/blacklung.shtml
4. Weeks, JL. "The Fox Guarding the Chicken Coop." American Journal of Public Health 93.8 (2003): 1236.
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Posted by: Sancha Haysbert

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