Beckley Register-Herald: Jenkins files black lung benefit protection resolution

U.S. Rep. Evan Jenkins, R-W.Va., introduced a resolution Tuesday protecting black lung benefits amid a growing numbers of cases reported in the Central Appalachia coalfields. 

Black lung has roared back faster in the region than previously thought possible, and has not been so prevalent since 1974, government and local medical officials said Tuesday.

During his inaugural floor speech, Jenkins said Congress must reaffirm its commitment to provide miners with help if they contract black lung.

"Since 1973, miners have known that if they get black lung, the federal government will be there to stand up for them," Jenkins said, holding up the two-page legislation. "We made them a promise. We must keep that promise."

Jenkins' speech came after a couple of recent studies indicated that severe black lung, knows as progressive massive fibrosis, in West Virginia, Virginia and Kentucky miners reached 3.2 percent, up from 0.4 percent nearly 20 years ago, according to a study published American Journal of Respiratory and Critical Care Medicine. 

Black lung disease was at its highest in 1974, when 3.3 percent of miners in the three states suffered from the respiratory disorder, according to the medical journal.

The recent uptick can be attributed to newer and more powerful machines that grind coal and rock into finer particles which then exposes miners to harmful materials, said Dr. Donald Rasmussen, a Beckley pulmonologist and an expert on black lung.

Mining the region's thinner coal seams also churns up more rocks and hazardous silica dust, he said.

"I'm worried because we haven't seen the end of the increase" in black lung,  said Rasmussen. 

In West Virginia, more than 18,000 men and women work in the coalfields, said Jenkins. Since 1973, he said, more than 100,000 West Virginia miners applied for black lung benefits. Today, nearly 5,000 miners and their families count on the benefits to care for families when they are no longer able to go down in the mines, he said.

"Congress must uphold, protect and secure these crucial benefits for our hardworking miners and their families," Jenkins said.

The rise in black lung has taken researchers by surprise. David Blackley, a researcher for the National Institute for Occupational Safety and Health, told The Wall Street Journal in late 2014 that the general sense, especially in Central Appalachia, was that black lung was surging again, but researchers were surprised that the numbers of cases were so high.

Rasmussen, who has examined more than 40,000 miners for black lung since 1963, said even if mining was halted today, it would take years to slow the prevalence of this disease in the region, because it has a long latency period and miners have already been exposed to unhealthy levels of dust.

"Frankly, it's scary as hell, because what we are seeing right now you know it's only going to go up," he said.

In the closing of his floor speech, Jenkins said as Congress works on health care reform, miners who toiled aboveground and underground must be remembered.

"Any reform must secure the black lung benefits program and ensure that these critical benefits will be available for our miners and their families," he said.