Dr. Donald Rasmussen in the 1970s
photo by Earl Dotter
A Betrayal of Trust
by Betty Dotson-Lewis
I am a resident of the coalfields. My surroundings include mountaintop removal,
strip mines, deep mines, overweight coal trucks, and miners with every stage
of black lung. Do you know black lung disease is as much a
part of the coalmine culture as mountains, hollows, and coal? I do. Do you know the disease was eradicated
by legislation in 1969? Coal companies were mandated by federal regulation to
maintain dust levels which would prevent miners from getting the disease. That
was in theory only. Do you know since
the early 1990s, Black Lung Clinics and private doctors trained to diagnose
black lung are finding a resurgence in the disease in disturbing numbers, a
more severe form, and showing up in younger miners. I do.
Black lung is a debilitating disease coalminers get by
inhaling fine particles of coal dust.
This dust, once in the lungs, cannot be removed or destroyed, instead,
it steadily progresses causing damage as it spreads throughout the lungs even
after exposure to the dust has ended. The particles build up causing thickness
and scarring rendering the lungs less efficient in getting oxygen into the
blood. As the disease progresses, the
miner may develop enlargement and strain of the right side of the heart which
can result in heart failure.
Symptoms include shortness of breath, hacking up black
phlegm, wheezing and a tingling sensation throughout the body. Black lung is an incurable disease and for
9,000 coalminers since 1999, death has been the only relief.
“The Federal Coal Mine Health and Safety Act of 1969” put a
strict ceiling on the amount of coal dust in the mines of 3 mg per cubic meter,
later to be reduced to 2 mg per cubic meter, and provide benefits to those who
already had black lung. This
health-safety act intended to protect the miner has turned into a money
changing game where big coal companies pay big bucks wherever needed to bar
their disabled miners from receiving entitled benefits.
“Breathless and
Burden” an investigative series by The Center of Public Integrity shows the
rest of the world many of those disturbing and unethical acts by doctors and
lawyers. To coalfield residents this is more example of coal companies’ long
history of abuse and bullying of miners.
During the 1920s,
coal companies hired Baldwin-Felts Agents who wore fake deputy badges and
carried guns to keep miners under their thumbs.
When miners were suspected of organizing, the agents on a cold, snowy
January evicted women and children from coal company houses, busting up
furniture, and forcing the families out in the cold rain with only the clothes
on their back.
Now, coal companies funnel generous amounts of money to
medical centers like John Hopkins University to enlist their help in defeating
claims of miners with black lung.
According to this investigation, John Hopkins has not disappointed their
clients-big coal. Dr. Paul Wheeler, head of the division, responsible for reading
3,400 x-rays since 2000, found not one single case of complicated black lung
despite biopsies and autopsies later
showed the complex form of the disease – the worst variety – in more than 100
of those cases. The X-ray reading
program Dr. Wheeler directs has been suspended while the hospital reviews it.
But how will John Hopkins behave when money from big coal companies stops
pouring into the institutional coffers?
This deliberate action by a high-ranked medical center to
prevent workers from receiving what the law entitles them to is unimaginable
and is a breach in their contract to uphold high medical standards. Another
troubling fact is West Virginia Senator Jay Rockefeller’s wife, Sharon, serves
on the board of directors at Johns Hopkins. Was she aware of what was happening
in the black lung division? If not, why? In 2011 West Virginia was the largest
coal producer east of the Mississippi.
Our faith is shaken.
Coalmine communities still believe in the tradition of
looking out for each other. But what do we do when one of our own turns on us?
The Jackson Kelly law firm, named in Center for Public Integrity investigation,
has offices in the middle of our coalfields, home to our traditions, home to
our riches and home to our disabled miners with black lung. This prominent law
firm, staffed with homegrown attorneys educated at West Virginia University Law
School, represents big coal companies. These lawyers’ actions against miners,
who are working in the hills a heartbeat away, display a lack of moral
conscience and concern for fellow community members. It's a sacred mountain
tradition broken.
The Center
for Public Integrity reported that these attorneys have admitted to
withholding key evidence in cases where the miners would qualify for benefits.
It is difficult to win when the enemy is in your camp.
Our hope is gone.
Who will help the miner suffering from black lung?
The Presumption Clause
If there is a glimmer of hope beside this public awareness
of the discriminatory practices against miners, it’s the provision within
the Affordable Care Act (also called “Obamacare”) that our late West Virginia
Senator Robert Byrd pushed through.
The provision says that if a person has worked as an
underground coal miner or was employed in conditions substantially similar to
underground coal mine employment for at least 15 years and suffered from the
effects of pneumoconiosis (black lung), the presumption would be that coal dust
caused the ailment and the coal miner would be entitled to benefits. Now the
coal company has to prove otherwise. Before, that burden of proof rested on the
miner.
A Call for Federal Investigation
U. S. Representatives George Miller (D-California) and Joe
Courtney (D-Connecticut) have called for a federal investigation of black lung
benefits program., They want Labor Secretary Scott S. Dahl to investigate claims,
including possible misconduct by doctors at Johns Hopkins and lawyers at the
Jackson Kelly law firm.
This news is bitter-sweet. I think of the miners who died
not only of black lung disease but of a broken spirit caused by coal companies’
betrayal.
These were men like John Adkins, who had to rest his fragile
bones in the cracks in the couch so as not to put pressure on them. He suffered
more than I can imagine, and yet even worse emotional pain came in the defeat
of his black lung benefits claim.
There's miner Clifford McMann, who was forced to submit to
coal company doctor’s examination after he was on life support.
And miner Cecil Butcher, a man who survived a violent attack
during a coal strike but died strapped to an oxygen tank because of black lung.
Betty Dotson-Lewis is from West Virginia and is the
author of several books on
Appalachian heritage and social issues.
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