A West Virginia Coal Miner Just Saved NIOSH's Black Lung Program

[Omaha Steve]

A federal judge ordered the restoration of jobs in the National Institute for Occupational Health and Safety’s Respiratory Health Division after a veteran coal miner filed a class action lawsuit arguing that the mass firings would lead to irreparable harm.

Kim Kelly May 15, 2025

In a rare occasion of good news for the nation’s coal miners, a decision this week in a lawsuit brought by one of their own will reverse at least some of the damage done when the Trump administration eviscerated the National Institute for Occupational Safety and Health (NIOSH) offices in Morgantown, W. Va., in April.

That’s when hundreds of those workers had suddenly found themselves out of a job thanks to a slapdash ​“reorganization,” as the Elon Musk-directed wreckers in DOGE termed it.

As a result, the NIOSH Respiratory Health Division and the Coal Workers Health Surveillance Program (CWHSP), whose ongoing research and health screenings are critically important in addressing the black lung epidemic stalking Appalachia’s coal miners, were left unable to function.

Now, just over a month later, a preliminary injunction, issued by U.S. District Judge Irene Berger in the suit against the Department of Health and Human Services Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr., is a win for those resisting the cuts and trying to survive their devastating impacts.

FULL story: https://inthesetimes.com/article/west-virginia-coal-miner-niosh-black-lung-program