Coal miners in Kentucky are avoiding a free black lung screening program offered by the U.S. government for fear of losing their jobs, according to a newspaper report this week.
Only 15% of Kentucky miners are getting screened for black lung, about half the national average, according to a special section in the Courier-Journal of Louisville. The reason is that miners must tell their employers if they are diagnosed with black lung if they want to get benefits, and many fear the revelation could make them unable to work in the mines.
Perhaps as a result of the reticence, black lung death rates rose 38% in Kentucky in the six years ending in 2004, while they fell in other coal-mining states, the paper reported. Meanwhile, since the 1970s, the overall percentage of coal miners with black lung has dropped from 33% to less than 5%.
An article in the section highlights the dichotomy of the situation in Kentucky: On a recent tour through eastern Kentucky and southwest Virginia by a mobile van operated by the U.S. National Institute for Occupational Safety and Health (NIOSH), only 13% of the estimated workforce of coal miners responded -- but two to five times as many miners as expected had black lung, with 43 severe cases detected.
The main problem is that many miners believe they won't be able to transfer to jobs with less exposure to coal dust if they are found to have black lung disease. Indeed, the article indicates that only 10% to 15% of eligible miners actually transfer.
