‘Do you have to be dead?’: US coalminers plead for benefits as black-lung disease cases surge

Fifty-year high in black lung, and the benefits system still wants proof you're basically dead before it helps.

Trump says he digs coal – but pneumoconiosis cases are at a 50-year high, and sick miners are mired in benefit delays For 38 years, Josh Armes worked as a coal miner in West Virginia and Virginia. After retirement, Armes, 74, of Grundy, Virginia, was diagnosed with black lung disease, medically known as coal workers’ pneumoconiosis (CWP), caused by breathing in coal dust over long periods, which irreversibly damages the lungs. Continue reading...

Read it at The Guardian (US Pol) ↗

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