3 days ago
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Coal miners suffer screenings aft Trump cuts
Morgantown, West Virginia — In West Virginia's ember country, Marion Tennant says helium was destined to enactment successful the mines.
"That was the lone happening successful this country erstwhile I graduated precocious school," Tennant said.
That was successful 1974, erstwhile Tennant was protected by the National Institute for Occupational Safety and Health, oregon NIOSH.
For decades it offered escaped screenings for black lung, a chronic illness caused by prolonged vulnerability to ember dust. But the screenings person stopped due to the fact that of President Trump's mandated budget cuts.
Tennant says he's disquieted for the younger workers.
"What's going to happen, I'm afraid, is your young ones, earlier they recognize what they've done to their body, they're gonna person achromatic lung, and the numbers is going to rise," Tennant said.
Catherine Blackwood was a PhD idiosyncratic astatine the NIOSH installation successful Morgantown, West Virginia, wherever she studied the dangers of mold exposure.
"I'm aggravated that we are conscionable being formed aside," Blackwood said.
Her occupation was eliminated April 1, on with implicit 200 others astatine the installation — from the radical who oversee excavation information to those who survey cancer-causing chemicals successful firefighters.
"I'm truly disquieted and fearful astir what the impacts are going to beryllium connected the remainder of us," Blackwood said.
And it's not conscionable astir Morgantown.
"Every azygous idiosyncratic faces antithetic hazards astatine their enactment each day. And without NIOSH, I deliberation that we are each successful danger," Blackwood said.
Although immoderate roles were temporarily reinstated successful caller days, the Trump medication inactive plans to terminate each unit successful the coming months, leaving the aboriginal of the wellness screenings and different programs successful doubt.
When asked astir the cuts to important programs, a Health and Human Services spokesperson said successful part: "The section remains focused connected cutting wasteful bureaucracy and eliminating duplicative administrative roles."
But Blackwood says, "The enactment being done astatine NIOSH was not wasteful. It was not duplicative. It was not redundant. The probe that was being done astatine NIOSH was being done obscurity other successful the world."
West Virginia isn't lone coal country — it's Trump country. He won the authorities successful 2024 with 70% of the vote.
Tennant, present retired, says helium didn't ballot for erstwhile Vice President Kamala Harris oregon Mr. Trump.
"He's looking astatine the coal-fired powerfulness plants, but he's besides doing distant with NIOSH that helps the information of the ember miners," Tennant said.
The fund for NIOSH was astir $363 cardinal successful 2023, the aforesaid twelvemonth that occupation injuries and illnesses outgo Americans astir $176 billion, according to the National Safety Council. Without NIOSH, officials accidental that fig could beryllium higher.
"I don't deliberation it's hyperbole to accidental that eviscerating NIOSH, arsenic they have, volition origin radical to die," Blackwood said.
- In:
- Health
- Donald Trump
- Coal
Jericka Duncan is simply a nationalist analogous and anchor of the "CBS Weekend News." She's based successful New York City.
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