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Black Lung Kills Thousands of Coal Miners Every Year Friday, June 06 2008

On the 30 Day season premiere this week, Morgan Spurlock worked as a coal miner in West Virginia. He was taken in as a house guest of Dale Lusk, who also was the supervisor of the mine Morgan worked at. Morgan was educated on the dangers of coal mining; especially the dreaded coal worker’s pneumocoriosis also known as Black Lung Disease.

According to wikipedia.org, Black Lung is brought on by long-term exposure to coal dust and not surprisingly, it is a common problem with people who work with coal. This disease has effects similar to getting silicosis (inhaling silica dust) and smoking tobacco.

The fine dust from coal gets built up in the lungs and the body cannot remove it naturally. This situation then leads to inflammation and if not treated, death.

Dale and Morgan went to the doctor near the end of the episode and Dale was informed that he indeed have dust in his system. Certainly he is not alone. Out of the approximate 42,000 coal miners in the U.S., black lung is very commonplace even though the disease is preventable. Over 10,000 coal miners have died from Black Lung in the past decade.

The Federal Coal Mine health and Safety Act was passed and became law in 1969 to protect the health of coal workers. Since then, the amount of miners with Black Lung dropped by 90 %. Unfortunately, it is now on the rise and the amount of workers with this disease has doubled and between 2000 and 2004, around 4,000 workers had died from Black Lung in the U.S.

Steps are being taken to help and educate coal workers of how to protect their bodies if quitting the coal business isn’t a viable option. The Mine Safety and Health Administration (MSHA) and the National Institute for Occupational Safety and Health (NIOSH) are conducting Mobile Health Screening Programs around the country. Workers who are in the program get a free checkup every five years which includes Chest x-rays which alerts to dangers of black lung even before the miner has any lung problems. This program is available to current miners only.