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The Sunday Story: Coal miners suffer and die from severe black lung disease : Up First In 2011, NPR correspondent Howard Berkes noticed an anomaly in the sidebar of a government report on the Upper Big Branch mine disaster in West Virginia. It suggested that there was an extraordinarily high rate of black lung disease among the coal miners who'd been killed in the explosion. And it set him on a decade-long investigation to understand the cause of a hidden epidemic, the toll it took on miners and their families, and why government agencies had failed to prevent it.

You can find more of Howard's landmark reporting on black lung disease on the episode page.

Up First

The Sunday Story: Coal's deadly dust

The Sunday Story: Coal's deadly dust

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Danny Smith spent just 12 years mining coal before he was diagnosed with complicated black lung disease at 39. Elaine McMillion Sheldon for PBS Frontline hide caption

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Elaine McMillion Sheldon for PBS Frontline

Danny Smith spent just 12 years mining coal before he was diagnosed with complicated black lung disease at 39.

Elaine McMillion Sheldon for PBS Frontline

Danny Smith was just 39 years old when he was diagnosed with complicated black lung disease. By the time he was 46, he'd picked out his plot in the family cemetery. He knew the end was coming.

"It's eating at me and eating at me for the last two years. That I'm going to die over this, over... y'know and of all the things that could've killed me while I did work there, rockfalls and all that stuff. You know, I lived through all that. And I find out years later I'm going to die over black lung and it's heartbreaking. "

Smith suffers from progressive massive fibrosis, or complicated black lung, an advanced, incurable and fatal stage of black lung disease. It's caused by the inhalation of coal mine dust, especially exposure to highly dangerous silica dust.

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Lungs riddled with fibrotic tissue from complicated black lung disease are displayed in the office of radiologist Brandon Crum in Pikeville, Ky. Elaine McMillion Sheldon for PBS Frontline hide caption

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Elaine McMillion Sheldon for PBS Frontline

Lungs riddled with fibrotic tissue from complicated black lung disease are displayed in the office of radiologist Brandon Crum in Pikeville, Ky.

Elaine McMillion Sheldon for PBS Frontline

Concern over silica's role in black lung has been growing for decades. In fact, in 1974, federal researchers had urged regulators to act, and have repeatedly done so since. This summer, the federal Mine Safety and Health Administration (MSHA) finally issued a proposed new regulation to limit miners' exposure to silica dust.

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Retired coal miner Mark McCowan reviews an X-ray of his diseased lungs at his home in Pounding Mill, Va. McCowan has progressive massive fibrosis, the worst stage of black lung disease. Howard Berkes/NPR hide caption

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Howard Berkes/NPR

Retired coal miner Mark McCowan reviews an X-ray of his diseased lungs at his home in Pounding Mill, Va. McCowan has progressive massive fibrosis, the worst stage of black lung disease.

Howard Berkes/NPR

But a new investigation by former NPR Investigations correspondent Howard Berkes found that MSHA has severely underestimated the impact of the proposed regulation, and failed to include the extent of severe black lung in coal country. Howard and his reporting partners also found that the agency failed to mention ongoing overexposures to silica dust, potentially undermining the urgency of the effort to protect coal miners, even as opposition to the proposed regulation builds. You can read Howard Berkes' reporting on that story here.

For Berkes, the findings of each investigation made him determined to continue the reporting.

"I met a lot of sick and dying coal miners. I met a lot of crippled workers and their families. I met a lot of loved ones of miners who were killed on the job," he says.

"And I just came to believe that work should not be a death sentence, that coal miners and other workers deserve to go home every night whole and alive."

You can find more of Howard Berkes' reporting below:

  • Berkes' reporting on coal mine safety and black lung disease spans a decade. In 2012, NPR and the Center for Public Integrity documented a deadly resurgence of black lung disease in coal country.
  • In 2016, Berkes led an NPR and Ohio Valley ReSource investigation that found coal miners were suffering from the most complicated and deadly form of black lung disease in numbers more than ten times what federal researchers had reported.
  • In 2018, Berkes and PBS Frontline reported on the government's failure to respond to decades of evidence showing clear signs of danger in coal country.
  • He also interviewed sick and dying coal miners for the NPR and PBS Frontline investigation, which documented for the first time the extent of the government's failure to protect coal miners.

This episode of The Sunday Story was produced by Justine Yan and edited by Jenny Schmidt.

We'd love to hear from you. Send us an email at TheSundayStory@npr.org.

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