Dust, Deception & Death

Link: Dust, Deception & Death. The Courier-Journal, Louisville.

Cheating on coal-dust tests widespread at nation's mines

Stories by GARDINER HARRIS and RALPH DUNLOP Photographs by STEWART BOWMAN

Every year, black lung disease kills almost 1,500 people who have worked in the nation's coal mines. It's as if the Titanic sank every year, and no ships came to the rescue. While that long-ago disaster continues to fascinate the nation, the miners slip into cold, early graves almost unnoticed.

In a five-part series, The Courier-Journal reveals why so many miners are dying -- more than a century after doctors learned that coal dust kills and 28 years after Congress passed a law to wipe out black lung.