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Washington — A new law permanently restores a recently expired excise tax rate increase on coal production, which will help fund health care and other benefits for coal miners who have black lung disease.
Washington — NIOSH will offer a series of free, confidential health screenings for current and former coal miners as part of the agency’s Coal Workers’ Health Surveillance Program.
Washington — Proposed legislation that would ease access to health care and other benefits for coal miners who have black lung disease is advancing in the House.
Washington — NIOSH has planned a series of free, confidential health screenings for current and former coal miners via the agency’s Coal Workers’ Health Surveillance Program.
Chicago — Physicians contracted by mine operators to review chest X-rays of coal miners who file “totally debilitating disease” workers’ compensation claims with the Department of Labor’s Federal Black Lung Program may have a bias strongly related to financial conflict of interest, researchers at the University of Illinois at Chicago suggest.
Washington — The Mine Safety and Health Administration has determined that the annual training requirements outlined in its Refuge Alternatives for Underground Coal Mines rule supply “an experience sufficient to enable miners to apply their knowledge, other training and available written instruction to effectively use the refuge alternative in an emergency.”
Arlington, VA — Prompted by a recent incident in which a bulldozer operator working on a surge pile of coal was engulfed and trapped in the machine’s cab when the pile collapsed, the Mine Safety and Health Administration has issued a safety alert.
State College, PA — Using a 3D device on a microchip that mimics the behavior of human lungs, researchers from Penn State University will use a $400,000 grant from NIOSH to study the effects of nano-scale coal dust on the lungs of underground miners, the university has announced.
Washington — Surface coal miners, especially those who work in drilling, may be exposed to higher concentrations of respirable dust or quartz. This puts them at elevated risk of coal workers’ pneumoconiosis – a deadly but preventable disease known as black lung, results of a recent NIOSH study show.
