Black Lung
Oral History Interview
with Dr. Donald L. Rasmussen
(A Doctor Devoting
His Life to Defeating Black Lung Disease)
Sophia, West Virginia
July, 2002-5:00 p.m.
Dr. Donald Rasmussen
(Introductory comments by friends and associates)
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Sherry
Williams, August 6, 2002,
Beckley, WV
In 1975
Dr. Rasmussen helped my mother get her black lung. My father died when he was
51 years old. Dr. Rasmussen performed
an autopsy and that was instrumental in my mother getting black lung. He has been instrumental in getting
hundreds and hundreds of coalminers their black lung. He is not only a number one doctor. He is a number one.
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Cecil
Roberts, UMWA (United Miners Workers of America) President - August, 2002
As a
champion for human rights, Dr. Donald Rasmussen helped spearhead the fight
waged by the United Mine Workers of America and other advocates to compensate
victims of black lung and prevent further victimization. As a leading expert on pulmonary disease,
he helped change the way that America's
medical profession views this disease.
Through his extensive research on black lung, he was able to dispel
the mythology spewed by operator-hired doctors, who often claimed the disease
resulted from smoking instead of coal dust.
As an outspoken advocate for justice, he played a key role in shaping
laws that provide compensation and benefits for black lung victims, including
thousands of UMWA members, in West
Virginia and across America.
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Alan
Derickson, Penn St. Professor and author,
Black Lung: Anatomy of a Public Health
Disaster
Donald
Rasmussen made a singular and extremely important contribution to the
historic efforts to compensate victims of black lung and to prevent further
victimization. All those who care
about this issue and, beyond that, about a human society are deeply in his
debt.
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Mike
Clark. Yellowstone
National Park, Heritage
Foundation, August, 2002
Please
pass on to Dr. Rasmussen my warmest personal regards. I have few heroes left
-- perhaps a legacy of growing older in America -- but he is one of my
heroes and I admire him enormously. His work remains for me the outstanding
example of a medical doctor in Appalachia
responding to a region-wide crisis, bringing his medical expertise and moral
judgment to bear on the problem, and then helping ordinary people and their
union work to solve the problem.
His
expertise on black lung and his willingness to help thousands of victims and
their families improved the lives of miners throughout the country. All of us who care about coal miners and
the coal mining regions of the United States are forever
indebted to him for his service, his humanity, and his leadership over the
past thirty years.
During
my time at Highlander and in the years since, I have often been reminded of
his unique role and his leadership in bringing about reforms in the coal
industry and in public health for rural people in this country. I remember his willingness to not only help
coal miners, but to also educate other industrial workers about hazards in
the workplace.
For
example, once at a Highlander workshop for textile workers suffering from
brown lung, Dr. Rasmussen made the long drive to Highlander and spent a day
with about thirty disabled textile workers.
At the end of the day, one leader in the group, with tears in her
eyes, told me -- "That's the first doctor I've ever met who told us the
truth about why we can't breathe and who has helped us figure out what to do
about it."
Those
workers went on to gain some degree of compensation for their disease in
North and South Carolina
because of what Dr. Rasmussen taught them that day.
I
think this kind of story could be repeated again and again about the good
doctor. Please convey to him my complete
admiration for his career and my thanks for all he has done for working
people in this country.
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Oral history interview.
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Author’s
note: During an oral history interview with a
coalminer suffering from black lung, I learned that Dr. Donald Rasmussen was
still living and practicing medicine in the Appalachian area. I wrote a
letter to him explaining the purpose of my website and sent him copies of
several stories I had collected from coal miners. I asked him for
an oral history interview to capture the story of the miners' struggle in
obtaining black lung benefits; as well as the events leading up to Jock
Yablonski, his wife and daughter's, brutal murder during his bid for
President of the United Miners Workers of America. Two
weeks passed, no call, no letter, nothing from Dr. Rasmussen-I was becoming a
little skeptical, a little worried I would not get this great story-then one
day, I was busy working at my desk in the early afternoon around two p.m. when my phone rang in July, 2002-it
was Dr. Rasmussen. We spoke briefly and he agreed to an oral history
interview
I was so excited I immediately emailed friends out of
the region who were familiar with Dr. Rasmussen's work; Branscome, NYC; Hall,
DC; Clark, Montana; Derickson, Penn St. I quickly wrote Ken Hechler a
letter. Then, I told everyone in the office, Dr. Rasmussen was going to
give me an oral history oral. I was the lucky one.
He invited me to come to his home in Sophia, WV
on the following Tuesday around 5:30
pm. (same coal camp town where Sen. Robert C. Byrd grew
up). I left for Sophia on that Tuesday right after work
heading toward Sophia, WV on Robert C. Byrd Drive. At exit 42, the
sign said "Keep right for Sophia."
I arrived in Sophia, a typical southern Appalachian coal mining
town. At the stop light, I turned right instead of left and realized I
was lost. I pulled over to the side and waved to a town cop, who
immediately came to my rescue. When I asked him for directions to Dr.
Rasmussen's home, he just said, "Follow me." It was probably
two blocks away. A home for Dr. Rasmussen in the heart of the Southern
Appalachian coalfields of West
Virginia.
I was greeted warmly by Dr.
Rasmussen, his beautiful wife, Carmen, their dog and two of their 6
cats.
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How did you get here and become involved in the coal miners' struggles?
"The
Journal of American Medical Association classified ad in October, 1962 read, -
"Doctors Needed in Beckley,
West Virginia, at the Miners Memorial
Hospital"
"I came to look around and
never left." - Dr. Donald
Rasmussen, Black Lung Specialist, told me.
When did you become an advocate for the coalminers and their families?
I
was merely caring for my patients. It
was all in the scope of my job, I never considered the work I did as anything
beyond what my job called for in caring for my patient. I never used the term "advocate" to
describe myself-just a physician performing my duty. Unfortunately not a lot has changed for the
coal miner, maybe some in the areas of safety and health improvements have been
made.
Where did you grow up, was it near West Virginia?
I
was born in the southern part of Colorado
in a little place called Manassa, just north of the New Mexico state line on the banks of the Conejas River, close to a town called Alamosa,
between Trinidad and Durango.
When
I was five, my family left there and moved to Ft. Collins
where my father went to veterinary school.
I attended school in Ft.
Collins through the first
three grades; when my dad got out of school we moved to Ogden, Utah
where my dad's brother had a veterinary practice.
We
lived there in Ogden
up to my junior year in high school. We moved to Logan, Utah,
where I finished high school and pre-med in college. So, I was not born in West Virginia but many miles away.
Where did you
complete your education?
I
did my undergraduate work at Utah
State University
at Logan, Utah. I then went to medical school in Salt Lake City at the University of Utah. I graduated in 1952 I
interned at the University of Minnesota and then spent one year at the
University of Utah and two years at Letterman General Army Hospital in San
Francisco. I had one year of pulmonary
residency at Fitzsimmons
General Hospital
in Colorado.
I
was in the Army in 1955 and stayed until 1962. I was in the Army for some of my
training at Letterman and Fitzsimmons
Army Hospitals. I was in the Army between Korea and Vietnam serving
initially at Ft. Ord, California.
Then I was assigned to Fitzsimmons as Chief of TB and then Chief of
Chest Services at Brookside
Hospital at Ft. Sam,
Houston, Texas.
When
I got out of the army and I was looking for a place to practice medicine, I ran
across an ad in JAMA (Journal of American Medical Association),"Doctors
needed in Beckley, West Virginia at the Miners Memorial
Hospital." They were going to pay my way out and
back. I came in October 1962 just to
look around and I never left.
I liked
what I saw, the facility and the people.
I was very much impressed with the medical staff at the Miners Memorial
Hospital in Beckley in 1962. They
had, for example, a pulmonary specialist.
He was Robert Hyatt and he subsequently went to the Mayo Clinic and
eventually became the director of the Mayo Clinic's Pulmonary Function.
(Author's note: I spoke with
Dr. Hyatt on the phone at his cabin in northern Minnesota after Dr. Rasmussen told me that
he had originally practiced at the Miners
Memorial Hospital. He has just retired after three decades of
work at the Mayo Clinic. I also
learned that Dr. Hyatt supervised doctors at Ground Zero; to help diagnose
rescue workers suffering from respiratory problems at the site of the September
11 attacks - Dr. Hyatt told me he was leaving Miners Memorial
Hospital when Dr.
Rasmussen came on board but he did remember him well. Dr. Hyatt said he had visited the area two
years ago looking for the little state police headquarters converted to a house
he and his family occupied while living in Beckley. He told me that his daughter attended college
in Blacksburg, VA.
Finally, Dr. Hyatt said that he could never forget the beauty of the
region but was appalled by what he saw happening with mountaintop removal.)
We
had a pathologist who was interested in cytopathology. We had a cardiologist who had done a lot of
work on cardiac rhythm who later was working with George Washington
Medical Center. A medical center was dedicated to him. We had others who were excellent, plus the
situation was comfortable with the closeness of the staff and the salary was
attractive. I also liked the idea of
caring for the coal miners. I was
impressed. I never regretted coming to
the hospital. I was fascinated by the
work.
When
I came, I had no knowledge about coal miners' lung disease, black lung. I did not come for that but I began to see a
lot of miners who had trouble with their lungs and breathing. I became more
interested and began to study the cases.
They had definite shortness of breath.
Even the X-rays did not show very much.
Breathing
studies might not show much either but we had seen a lot of different types of
lung disease at Fitzsimmons. The patient
may not show shortness of breath until they exercised. Normally these people would show a drop in
oxygen in the blood.
I
was able to persuade the hospital to get a gas analyzer and I guess the first
coal miner that we exercised and drew blood from showed the same kind of
abnormalities we had seen in unusual lung disease cases in hospitals where I
trained in Denver
and San Antonio.
For example, here was a guy, a coal miner, who
complained of shortness of breath. His
breathing test was normal, but through the exercise studies we were able to
determine a respiratory problem. We found a fair number of those with shortness
of breath with abnormalities and function and that was very interesting. I did not come here to do lung disease, but
this really got me interested. I was
fascinated by these cases.
Later,
I quit my job with the Miners
Hospital and spent two
years in the public health services. I
was doing the same type of studies though, and I traveled throughout the
Appalachian coalfields supervising two field teams evaluating Appalachian
coalminers. I was able to continue to do the exercise studies while I was in
the public health field.
To date we have evaluated approximately 50,000
coalminers for black lung disease. About
forty percent of those who have come to us show some evidence of the
disease. We continue to find the same
abnormalities, as well as miners with COPD.
What
I began to do after public health service-was to write reports for some of
these men for social security disability and others who were filing workers
compensation claims as a result of respiratory problems. I actually spent a lot of time being cross
examined as an expert witness. I would
go to Charleston
and testify and be cross-examined.
Also, I have served as an expert witness
before federal judges in Washington,
DC or in many cases the attending
physician in cases relating to Black Lung claims such as the appeal case of
Mildred Clovis, widow of Everett Clovis vs. FMC Mining Equipment Division,
Decision issued, December
22, 2000. These cases usually involve the awarding of a miner or
his widow benefits and then the coal operator tries to take those benefits
away. These cases are heard by Federal Appeals Judges.
Then
in 1968 Dr. Hawey Wells, a pathologist in the public health service, who was
working at Johnstown, PA., (had been working in Washington, D.C. with Congress) invited me
and three coal miners to come to Washington and testify before the Judicial
Subcommittee. l never thought that
Subcommittee or the Bill they were talking about had any authority over the
coalminers and lung disease. There were
so many injuries and fatalities at that time in the mines due to inadequate
health and safety measures.
I
suppose that was the first time I did any advocacy work, trying to explain to
congressman the problems miners had. The
next year the miners had their annual convention in Denver, the fall of '68. Those miners came back from that convention
with a strong determination to change laws.
Dr. Lorin Kerr, who had been concerned about coal miners' lung disease
for many years, gave a talk at the convention. That was the spark that really
got it going. They began to organize for
changes in the workers compensation laws and an election was coming up.
The
miners wanted the House and Senate to talk to Dr. I. E. Buff who had been
talking about lung disease for some time as it related to the coal
industry. He was drawing a lot of
attention to the problems. There was
also a group of local union presidents that came to my office and asked me to
speak to and for the miners in the workers compensation cases and they begin to
invite me, Buff and Wells to their organization meetings.
After
that we were known as a circus; Buff and Wells were great entertainers. I was shocked at what Buff would do. He would thunder out, "Y'all got black lung and y'all gonna die!"
It
was an interesting act to try to follow.
Wells was the one who had gotten the dry inflated lung tissue from Dr.
Lorin Kerr and he would crunch this stuff up and let it fall to the floor and
say, "That is what is happening to
your brothers' lungs."
Buff
would come with an oxygen tank and mask and a white hat and black hat. He would tell the miners about the
legislators, "They wear their black hat when they talk to coal
operators. He would wear the oxygen tank
and oxygen mask and roar this when talking to miners, "This is what you will end up wearing." That was quite an experience.
In
November 1968 the mine at Mannington blew up.
This focused the whole county on the mine issue. It was obvious they needed laws to address
safety and health of the coal miners nationwide. Legislation was needed for workers
compensation to become more fair for the miners.
They
kept that up at rallies and really what they did over Christmas and New Years
in 1968 and 69 at Cabin Creek, they organized the Black Lung Association. A large percentage of the miners in the state
belonged to the organization.
They
hired a lawyer. The first President of
the Black Lung Association was Charles Brooks, a black miner, who began working
in the mines in 1941. He mortgaged his
home to get a down payment for a lawyer.
Paul Kauffman was the lawyer; Paul had been a West Virginia state senator in 1968. He ran for governor and lost. I campaigned for Paul. That was the first time I had done anything
like that. His son is Circuit Judge in Charleston, Todd
Kauffman. Paul basically wrote the provisions for the Black Lung
Association. (Paul, his wife and another
son were killed by a drunk driver in the '80s).
Warren
McGraw who was a West Virginia House of Delegates member at the time, also,
wrote a model and was very instrumental in the passing of what the Black Lung
Association wanted.
At
any rate, The Black Lung Association lobbied in the state capitol. They had
representatives from all over the state.
The miners had some of the lung tissue from Dr. Lorin Kerr and they
carried it around in a coffin with a sign "Black
Lung Kills." Basically, they
polled every member of the House and Senate.
They were complimented by some of the most conservative news media
because they were said to have not even overturned an ash tray.
They
were orderly; this subsequently culminated in some big rallies held all over
the state. Eventually, in Charleston
they had the combined House and Senate Judicial hearings in which three groups
participated.
The
United Mine Workers President, Tony Boyle, opposed the legislation. He even sent a delegate from Washington, D.C.
in an attempt to dissuade the Black Lung Association in going on with their
proposal. Kaufman put a stop to that by debating an attorney
they had chosen.
When
the hearings started, The Black Lung Association had some of us testify on
their behalf. The coal operators had
experts to testify. The group The United
Miners Workers had selected included the renowned radiologist, Dr. Eugene
Prendergrass. They looked at the lung disease X-rays from Phil Jetrow Gough
from Great Britain
who had done the pioneer work on coal workers lung disease. Leon Cander at one time had been Governor
Scranton's Chief of Lung Disease in Pennsylvania. At that time he was professor of medicine and
physiology in San Antonio.
The
testimonies of these three were 100% in favor of what the members of The Black Lung Association proposed.
Afterward they rebroadcast the hearing. That night Leon came to
the hotel and he was saying, "We
won!" "We won!" "We won!"
At
any rate, we all felt so happy and satisfied by that hearing. Guess what?
They claimed the transcript had been lost and they came out with a new
proposal that was worse than what the miners had been living under.
Kauffman
and McGraw started scrambling to get something but that was not quick
enough. The miners started walking out
all over the state. They agreed to
adopt some of the provisions the Black Lung Association wanted. The most significant was the
"Presumption Clause" which said that if someone had worked ten years
or more in the mines subjected to dust exposure, you didn't need X-rays.
They
keep trying to bend that all the time.
That has helped a good many miners by having that "Presumption
Clause" in there. It has been
valuable to coal miners. When Governor
Moore signed that bill the miners went back to work.
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July 30, 2002 - second interview, Sophia, West Virginia: This interview took place after Quecreek, Pennsylvania,
mine disaster which occurred on July 25, 2002 resulting in miners trapped underground.
We
talked about the Quecreek rescue and Dr. Rasmussen told me he was not
surprised the miners were still alive.
I asked him about the rumors of inadequate mapping as the possible
fault for the cutting in of the abandoned adjacent mine. He told me in many cases the mapping is
fine - sometimes coal operators instruct the miners to go beyond the lines on
the map.
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Dr. Rasmussen told me the following stories about miners he knew.
One
story was about a miner who was involved in a mining accident, both legs were
cut off - at that time there was no workmen's compensation or unemployment and
he had to support his family, he made a cart with wheels, rolled himself into
the mines and continued to shovel coal.
We
talked about the role of the coal operator and the concept of
"Paternalism" brought about by coal camp life with the coal operator
controlling the life of the miner and his family; I was disturbed by this revealing statement -
"Yes, they depended on the coal operator for everything-in many cases the
miners were treated no better than slaves."
I
remember a story, he said, "A miner living in a coal-camp, his sister
died. She lived in another town. He needed a cash advance to go to her
funeral. The coal company required he
report all his assets, everything he owned; when the coal company officials
found out he had a cook stove in his house not purchased at the company story,
they denied the salary advance and the brother was unable to attend the
funeral."
His
wife Carmen came into the kitchen where we were working and she told me she
came from a family of coal miners. She
said that her grandfather worked in the coalmines, underground. He was in a mining accident and got both his
legs cut off. She said that her
grandparents never wanted her father to work in the mines.
What kept you involved in this movement?
The
thing that motivated me-I could see the injustice done to coal miners in the
workers' compensation arena because some of the miners I had may not have had
enough X-rays to satisfy people in those positions who had a say; so those miners
were denied Black Lung benefits. We had
a big fight on hand. We knew, based on
studies from Britain,
we could cut down on lung disease by cutting down on the dust the miners were
exposed to in the mines. This has been
known for hundred of years. So the
proposition has been made repeatedly over the years to take measures to cut
down on the dust in the mines.
I
wanted to get laws passed for the miners, but I never voluntarily pushed myself
out. I was invited to come and testify
before the Congressional Committee in D.C.
I did not voluntarily push myself out and I never considered myself an
advocate; I only did the work I knew was correct. I saw the miners who needed help; I never
felt I was leading a charge. I just told
of my own experiences and went on from that position. Everything I did and said was from the
laboratory and that is basically the same thing that happens now on a daily
basis. I do stick up for miners who have
impairment and so I back up the same thing I say. So basically, that is what I do. That is part of my normal duty-to take care
of my patients in whatever capacity needed.
I
don't know exactly how the miners began their progress toward getting Black
Lung Legislation; maybe it was through the directions from Ken Hechler or John
Cline. John Cline was one of the
original VISTA (Volunteers in Service to America)
workers which began in 1964. John Cline
had worked for years helping people. He
finally decided to go to law school and had recently graduated and I heard has
begun his own law practice.
Craig
Robinson, (you have to talk to Craig Robinson-get his story for your project)
he actually had been working with poor
people and many were displaced miners and disenfranized miners who were members
of the UMWA (United Mine Workers of
America) whose benefits had been
illegally and improperly withheld He was
interested in the Black Lung legislation.
He met with miners who should
have been retired and receiving benefits; but because of the lack of
legislation, they were denied. They
talked about what should be in the bill for coal miners. He worked along with Rick Banks. They even began formulating a Bill. They enlisted the help of Delegate Warren
McGraw. (You need to interview Warren
McGraw, he is now Chief Justice) He worked very hard in getting the Act of 1969
with changes in West Virginia Workers Compensation Law.
The
Black Lung Association hired Paul Kaufman, an attorney, to write a model bill
and to get it introduced; he consulted with those of us involved in the Black
Lung Association. Paul knew the ropes on
how to get bills introduced into the legislation because he was a former
senator himself; so he knew the mechanism.
Well,
I guess it was "politics" because it was funny that the bill was
delayed and the two groups that Craig had been working with joined together and
so they put forth the bill. Craig
Robinson and John Cline were principal guys in that work in getting that
important Bill passed. They were also
strong advocates for the Federal Mine Health and Safety Act.
Craig
along with Dr. Daniel Doyle built that up, that clinic as one of the most
effective, strong clinics in operation.
Craig knew everything about that place.
He knew everything, all the records, who was to be paid; they were
always trying to improve the image of the place. He is sorta like my boss now. He is doing the same thing at my
clinic-trying to salvage it, to keep it
from going under financially. Craig can
do it, if anyone can.
John
Cline stayed around here and worked at various community service jobs. He became a great advocate lobbying for coal
miners in their attempts for federal benefits and worked out of New River
Clinic for a long time.
What about your clinic, what is going on, can it be saved?
What
became the Southern West Virginia Clinic in 1964 was founded when UMWA Welfare
and Retirement Fund sold the clinics and hospitals they funded in West Virginia, Virginia and Kentucky to a non-profit
group Regional Health Care.
When
that happened, most of the doctors who had been here formed the clinic. There was not adequate space at the hospital
so in 1967 they built this building.
Some of the original doctors are still there at the clinic - Yates and
Maiola, they are still here and they came here before I did in 1962.
What were the other
guys like, Buff and Wells, did you get along and what has happened to them?
Wells
is alive and living in Martinsburg,
West Virginia. Buff is dead. We were like a group. I had known Wells since 1964 when he came as
a doctor for the public health service.
He grew up here. His father was a
professor at Concord
College. Wells is the kind of guy you can get into a
real fight with and the next day everything is fine. He is a likeable guy. You should talk with Wells. He did some of
the early pathology work in this country along with Lorin Kerr.
.
Were you ever in danger or were you threatened?
There
were some times when a few threats were made but that was primarily during the
United Mine Workers election in 1969.
Following the election and actually two weeks after the election,
Hechler called me up and said, "I miss those rallies. Yes, let's have another rally, a post rally."
We
organized a post rally at Sophia
High School, near Beckley, WV. Quite a big crowd of people came. Hechler came a little late and a car with
three passengers was parked in the path between the sidewalk and the high
school front door. Ken walked over to
the car. It was those men who later
murdered Yablonski. They had Ken on their
list to murder, and they had been following him all the time. It is amazing. The sad part is they didn't have to pay
hardly any money to get those guys to do this.
I
was with Yablonski at every rally he had between Fairmont, West Virginia
and Pikeville, Kentucky. At every single rally. I would do it again. Yablonski, I thought and still do think he
would have done things differently. He
would have made a strong Union president.
He would have picked the union up.
If only Yablonski had not been murdered.
Two districts in Eastern Kentucky, one in Virginia and several in West
Virginia and Ohio and Pennsylvania-that is where the Yablonskis lived-in a nice
place in southwest Pennsylvania, that is where they were killed. murdered in
their own home in 1969.
It
didn't take long for the law enforcement to arrest the murderers because they
had been casing the place and had people writing down the license plate numbers
of people coming through the area. I
think it was only the next day, and that made us more determined than ever to
form the Miners for Democracy.
Mr.
and Mrs. Joseph "Jock" Yablonski are shown in early December 1969,
just before the Dec. 9 United Mine Workers election. Yablonski was challenging
W.A. "Tony" Boyle for the presidency. Yablonski lost, but was
contesting the election when he, his wife and their daughter were murdered on
New Year's Eve as they slept in their Clarksville,
Pa., farmhouse. Boyle denied any
connection to the five thugs charged with the murders. Then in March 1971,
Boyle canceled a trip to Charleston
because he had been indicted for embezzling union funds and making illegal
political contributions. Shortly after he was convicted on those charges, Boyle
was charged with paying the assassins $20,000 to execute Yablonski. He tried to
kill himself. Eventually, Boyle was convicted and sentenced to three life
sentences. He died in 1985 at the age of eighty three.
Pete McCall (standing), United Mine Workers Journalist, interviews Dr. Don
Rasmussen for Journal - photo: July,
2002
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Rasmussen (seated), a long-time champion
for black lung victims, was honored by the UMWA membership at the District 17
executive board meeting Dec. 13, 2002 at Twin Falls Park, WV. He was recognized for his efforts in the
1960s and '70s in leading the fight for black lung legislation and his
continued dedication to coal miners.
President Roberts presented Dr. Rasmussen with a plaque of
appreciation and designated him an honorary member of the UMWA. Looking
on: District 17 President Joe
Carter, IEB member Bernard Evans, Secretary-Treasurer Harold Hayden and
Carmen Rasmussen, the doctor's wife.
(Photo, July, 2002) - Photo: Pete McCall, UMW Journalist
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