W.VA. Charleston – A judge on Tuesday ordered the recovery of a health surveillance program for West Virginia’s coal miners, with the federal government revoking the layoffs implemented on a unit of small US health agencies.
US District Judge Irene Berger has issued a preliminary injunction in a lawsuit filed against Health Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. and the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services by a coal miner diagnosed with a respiratory disease commonly referred to as black lung disease.
Nearly 200 workers at the National Institute for Occupational Safety and Health in Morgantown were said last month that their jobs were fired as part of a health and welfare restructuring. Berger ordered employment to be restored within Niosh’s respiratory hygiene division in Morgantown, although her ruling did not specify numbers. The department is responsible for screening and reviewing health checks to determine if there is evidence that the miner has developed black lungs.
Federal law requires coal miners to make regular health screening available. Those diagnosed with black lungs are also given the option to move to other locations in the mine to protect against continuous dust exposure without pay cuts.
Berger said the defendant “lacks the authority to unilaterally cancel the health monitoring program for coal workers within NIOSH. She ordered both surveillance and employment transfer programs to be restored, saying it was “not in a suspension, halt or gap,” required by the federal Mines Safety and Health Act.
Toxic silica dust contributes to the premature death of thousands of miners with black lung disease. Harry Wiley, an electrician at the West Virginia Mine who worked at the Cole mine for 38 years, was diagnosed with early-stage black lungs last November.
Canceling the health monitoring program “will cost a life expectancy,” Burger wrote. “Lending in a dusty job could speed up his death, as well as shorten the year Mr. Wiley is sucked in on foot.
The judge gave Kennedy 20 days to show that the federal government was complying with her orders.
Emails seeking comment from Health and Human Services were not immediately returned Tuesday night.
Wiley’s lawyer, Sam Brown Pettunk, said the interim injunction “had to happen, and I think I understand the absolute necessity of this program. It’s not hindered. It’s essential because it saves the lives of the hardest working people in the world.”
Niosh was created under the 1970 law signed by President Richard Nixon. The following year, it began operations and began hosting offices and labs in eight cities, including Pittsburgh in Cincinnati, Morgantown, and Spokane in Washington.
