On this edition of Your Call's Media Roundtable, we discuss a recent NPR investigation into the high rates of black lung disease among Appalachia’s coal miners.
New data from the National Institute for Occupational Safety and Health reveals that underground coal miners in central Appalachia are suffering from black lung at the highest rates since the 1970s.
Miners working in Kentucky, Virginia and West Virginia who've spent at least 25 years underground have the worst rate of coal workers' pneumoconiosis, or black lung disease. One in three tested positive in X-rays conducted by NIOSH during the last five years.
The last time the rate of disease was that high for miners with the same work history was 1978.
The new research shows that even miners with as few as 15 years underground have higher rates of black lung — rates not seen in nearly 40 years.
Guest:
Howard Berkes, award-winning investigative reporter for Public Health Watch, and former NPR investigations correspondent
Resources:
NPR: The black lung crisis deepens in Appalachia
E&E News: Zeldin vows to fulfill coal industry’s ‘wish list’
