Black lung not only persists in coal mines, in places it's getting worse, The Courier-Journal reports

"Efforts to end black-lung disease stretch back decades. But in Eastern Kentucky, the disease persists — and is far worse than federal health officials anticipated it would be by now," reports The Courier-Journal, in the latest example of the Louisville newspaper's continuing commitment to covering an issue important to a region that the paper has mostly abandoned. It offers a six-story package by R.G. Dunlop, former chief of the paper's now-closed Hazard bureau, and medical reporter Laura Ungar, who has written about rural health issues in Kentucky and elsewhere.

The black-lung pattern extends into southern West Virginia and southwest Virginia, where Dunlop began the package's main story with the story of Mark McCowan of Pounding Mill, Va. At a relatively young age, McCowan (in C-J photo by Matt Stone) has black lung, though he began mining in 1984, 15 years a federal law imposed limits on the coal dust that causes the disease. "He never should have been exposed to dust levels sufficient to scar his lungs, end his career and perhaps consign him to a premature death," Dunlop writes. "Now 43 and with two grown sons, McCowan is plagued by shortness of breath and fatigue."

Dunlop offers possible reasons that black-lung rates remain high in the region: "A federal advisory committee's key recommendations on how to stamp out the disease still haven't been implemented almost a decade after they were issued — partly because of a change in focus when President Bush took office, some say. Also, some researchers say the operators of small mines common in Eastern Kentucky may not have the resources or the will to bring dust down to levels that won't sicken workers." To read this valuable package, click here.