Why Black Lung Disease Is Deadlier Than Ever Before

[rangerrebew]

Why Black Lung Disease Is Deadlier Than Ever Before
As President Trump prepares to send miners back to work, a near-obsolete illness is once again ravaging coal country


William McCool was always a stickler for safety.
 

A 63-year-old retired miner from Kentucky, McCool wore his protective dust mask any time he descended into the underground tunnels. From his first day on the job in 1973 at Volunteer Coal Company in Tennessee to the day he left the mines in 2012, he would affix the mask firmly to his face—just as his father, who was a miner before him, had done.

Though many of his coworkers complained that the masks were clumsy to breathe through, McCool never questioned its importance. Every night, he would hand the mask to his wife, Taffie. And every night for 40 years, she would wash the mask clean, placing it in his dinner bucket for him to take to work the following day.



Read more: http://www.smithsonianmag.com/science-nature/black-lung-disease-deadlier-than-ever-before-180963303/#cXOoE49OumfHmCTx.99
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[goodwithagun]

Using current MSM tactics: Electric cars cause black lung in coal miners.

[Joe Wooten]

As President Trump prepares to send miners back to work, a near-obsolete illness is once again ravaging coal country

Funny how these diseases go away during a dhimmicrap administration, only to resurface with a vengeance when a Republican is in office...Jut like the homeless have homes during the same time only to be kicked out and homeless again ....

[Fishrrman]

I read just about all of the source article, it was interesting.

The great singer Hazel Dickens lost two brothers to black lung, and wrote a song of it.

You can find her original version on youtube, but as I was browsing there I found this rendition which I'd never heard before that was very good:


http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3sCahCe-FwY

[Smokin Joe]

Funny how these diseases go away during a dhimmicrap administration, only to resurface with a vengeance when a Republican is in office...Jut like the homeless have homes during the same time only to be kicked out and homeless again ....

From the article,

Wes Addington, who works with miners filing for black lung benefits as deputy director at the Appalachian Citizens’ Law Center, confirms this trend. Until recently, it was rare for him to see a PMF case, but in the last five or six years he estimates the number has increased tenfold. “It’s unbelievable how many of those cases I’m getting,” he says.

Sounds like disability claims under Obama. Jobs go away, 99 weeeks end, disability claims went up. These miners had been exposed to coal dust for years before contracting a problem.

I wonder, too, with the cases getting worse faster despite all the safety precautions, if the precautions themselves or some other factor besides just coal dust is involved.