Trump Digs Coal - let him dig it up personally!

Environ Health Perspect; DOI:10.1289/ehp.124-A13

A Scourge Returns: Black Lung in Appalachia

In the early 1970s, coal workers’ pneumoconiosis, or black lung, affected around one-third of long-term underground miners. After new dust regulations took effect, rates of black lung plunged. Today, however, they are once again rising dramatically, and the new generation of black lung patients have disease that progresses far more rapidly than in the past.
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Background image: Arthur Rothstein/Library of Congress

Carrie Arnold is a freelance science writer living in Virginia. Her work has appeared in Scientific American, Discover, New Scientist, Smithsonian, and more.

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Once a month, a group of men in t-shirts, jeans, and baseball caps gather around a long table at the New River Health Clinic. The clinic, a small, one-story yellow clapboard building, is located in the tiny town of Scarbro, nestled in the bituminous hills of southern West Virginia. The members of the Fayette County Black Lung Association greet each other by name while they pour bitter black coffee into small Styrofoam cups.

Full Story: http://ehp.niehs.nih.gov/124-a13/