The risk of getting black lung as a coal miner never went away, but actions that were taken in the 1970’s seemed to have an effect in lowering the number of cases for a while.

According to a Popular Science article from last year, the Federal Coal Mine Health and Safety Act was enacted in 1970. This legislation established for the first time dust limits to which coal miners could be exposed. Annual federal inspections of coal mines also became the norm as a result of this act, giving mining companies heavy financial incentive to pass inspection. Steep fines could result from non-compliance or failure to meet new standard.

The Coal Workers’ Health Surveillance Program was also established in the same decade. This gave access to preventative care for black lung and related ailments common to coal miners. The program ran for nearly 20 years, and participants rarely came down with black lung, known technically as pneumoconiosis.

The run of this program coincided with a drop in black lung cases. By the mid-1990s, instances of pneumoconiosis among coal miners had dropped to five percent of longtime miners, down from a high of over 30 percent in the 1960s, according to a September 2018 editorial by Mining.com.

Black Lung Cases Increase in Number

Now since the early 2000s, the incidents of black lung among miners has climbed back up to 10 percent and rising. A lot of this rise has been noted in the central Appalachian area of Kentucky, Virginia, and West Virginia. Mining.com says the methodologies of mining have changed and more lethal types of dust are being generated in coal mines. Additionally, former miners say that hours worked are longer than before and mines are dug deeper.

While 2014 saw miners benefit from a lower level of allowable dust generated, efforts to relax these standards are at work.

Another issue at hand may be defective safety equipment. In a recent Eastern Kentucky civil lawsuit, a jury awarded two brothers $67.5 million dollars at the expense of the 3M Co. because of allegedly defective and unreasonably dangerous coal dust masks which were supposed to protect the sibling coal miners from black lung.

The Lexington Herald Leader reports the jury didn’t hold the brothers’ employers liable for the pneumoconiosis they both developed. The 3M masks were allegedly so poorly constructed that the manufacturer was accused of “reckless disregard” for the welfare of others. A good percentage of the award made was in the form of punitive damages.

 How Do You Know If You Have Black Lung?

Both of the plaintiffs in the 3M mask lawsuit were smokers, a fact that led the jury to reduce 3M’s liability. Despite their smoking history, a diagnosis of black lung and pain and suffering from it were not difficult to determine. This condition presents itself in very unique ways.

Inhaling coal dust, according to Popular Science, causes the development of scar tissue over time which becomes very dense and turns black in the lungs as the disease progresses. The progression also leads to less and less elasticity of the lungs when breathing. Sufferers describe the attempt to get a deep-enough breath as feeling like suffocation. They report severe chest tightness and chronic cough, and at times but not always they may produce black sputum.

There is no cure for pneumoconiosis. Only palliative care is available.

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This article is not legal advice. It is presented
for informational purposes only.