VICE News: HB 2 Reforms Will Exacerbate Black-Lung Epidemic

Friday, July 13, 2018 | 0

An epidemiologist for the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, and a lawyer for miners, on Thursday blasted a workers' compensation law set to take effect this week, saying it will make it harder for coal miners to get care in the middle of the worst black-lung epidemic on record.

The scientist and the attorney were quoted in VICE News, an online investigative publication and television channel. The two said that the much-debated House Bill 2, which will become law Saturday, bars certified radiologists from assessing coal miners' X-rays.

Only pulmonologists can now make the determination of black-lung disease, and only five doctors in the state are qualified as pulmonologists for workers' compensation claims.

“It doesn't make any sense from a medical perspective,” CDC epidemiologist and black-lung expert Scott Laney told VICE News.

Of the five pulmonologists who will still be allowed to examine X-rays when state claims are filed, three have acted as expert witnesses on behalf of coal companies or their insurers as they sought to challenge miners’ benefit claims, the news report said.

“I mean, it's anti-science, is what it is. It's absurd,” says Wes Addington, a lawyer at the Appalachian Citizens’ Law Center who represents miners who make federal benefits claims. “It's almost like saying, ‘You know, your biopsy sample is not going to be read by a pathologist. We're going to have some other physicians look at it.’”

State Rep. Adam Koenig, R-Erlanger, who sponsored the bill, told VICE News that the law was passed to address a state Supreme Court decision that found that miners who seek benefits face tougher requirements than other people with similar lung illnesses.

The new law is intended to fix that, Koenig said. “One radiologist found a 41% incidence of black lung, [whereas] another one had found 91%. So that's an issue; it has to be consistent.”

Democratic lawmakers have said the bill was a sop to the coal industry, which has complained about workers' compensation premiums for years. With fewer black-lung diagnoses, fewer claims will have to paid, they said.

Black-lung disease is on the rise in recent years, the report said, in part because of new mining equipment that produces finer dust, and more intensive production at some sites. A CDC researcher told the news site that another reason is that some coal companies may not be fully complying with safety regulations.