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Related: Editorials & Other Articles, Issue Forums, Alliance Forums, Region ForumsCoal miners speak out as Trump strips away health protections, they voted for him and think he will change his mind
President Trump has vowed to reinvigorate America's coal industry, although critics say his administration has stripped away key protections for miners.
Eight retired miners, all who say they have black lung disease and most who say they voted for the president, are now sounding the alarm.
https://abcnews.go.com/US/live-coal-miners-speak-trump-strips-health-protections/story?id=121257399
Some of the more than 800 NIOSH employees placed on administrative leave -- around two-thirds of the entire workforce, sources said -- have taken matters into their own hands, setting up a guerilla "war room" around a Morgantown, West Virginia, dining table to do what little federal work they can before they're officially laid off in June, while campaigning for their important work to continue.
"So, what is going to happen now to the average coal miner if this work isn't being done?" O'Brien asked Dr. Scott Laney, a veteran NIOSH epidemiologist who was placed on administrative leave.
"It's going to lead to premature mortality and death in these miners," Laney said. "There's just no getting around it."
"Nobody else in the federal government does the work that we do to protect U.S. workers," Hall said. "Nobody else, you know, specifically at CDC, nobody else at NIH, nobody else in the United States does what we do. When we are gone, when our work is gone, our research is gone -- nobody steps up to take our place."
Amanda Lawson, who works at a health center in West Virginia, told ABC News that last week three miners came in and had horrible X-rays. She says she's already feeling the effects of the NIOSH cuts.
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In deep red coal country, several of the miners who met with ABC News have faith that Trump will reinstate protections for coal miners.
"If they'll give Trump time and let him work out his -- he's got a plan," Robinson told O'Brien. "I mean, he knows what he's doing. He's a smart man."
"What if he doesn't?" O'Brien asked.
"I feel sorry for the miners," Robinson replied.

Meowmee
(9,013 posts)Last edited Thu May 8, 2025, 01:31 PM - Edit history (1)
Aristus
(69,869 posts)n/t
Meowmee
(9,013 posts)Last edited Thu May 8, 2025, 03:07 PM - Edit history (1)
Pototan
(2,565 posts)FAFO
Irish_Dem
(69,300 posts)gordianot
(15,575 posts)benfranklin1776
(6,823 posts)My four uncles were miners from the 50s to the mid 70s- two of whom had black lung. All four were UMW members and understood it was only because of that union and the pro-worker laws it and other unions supported, and the Democratic Party enacted, that they had a decent middle class existence, and that they would have medical treatment if and when they succumbed to the abuse of their bodies from their exceedingly dangerous jobs. None of them would have remotely considered trusting a criminal con artist, worker-abusing thug like Agent Orange. They would have cheerfully tossed him and his Faux News enablers and shills onto the talings pile with all the rest of the wretched refuse their labors produced. But then they were thinking men who had fought totalitarianism in a world war and at home against coal companies who had a stranglehold on every aspect of their lives. This mindset like nothing else demonstrates the pernicious lethal effect of the propaganda the right wing media bombarded working people with for the last 50 years that has led to this zombified Jonestown level of suicidal cult worship 🤬🤬
riversedge
(75,364 posts)benfranklin1776
(6,823 posts)Which is why we must break the stranglehold of the pernicious disinformation the billionaire class has poisoned our society with.
Oopsie Daisy
(5,726 posts)Orrex
(65,120 posts)pansypoo53219
(22,190 posts)hatrack
(62,369 posts)
RJ-MacReady
(451 posts)No sympathy.
videohead5
(2,618 posts)They need a brain if they believe that. Trump is a con man for simpletons.
democrank
(11,456 posts)What coal miner wouldnt vote for the cretin offering those programs?
BoRaGard
(5,274 posts)
enigmania
(292 posts)Lokee11
(342 posts)
Hopefully when they drive them there pick-em up trucks they can roll down the windows so the wind can dry their tears.
GTFOH - Any person who can listen to the orange idiot talk and/or observe anything he does and then come to the conclusion that Orange Fuck is " a smart man." pretty much deserves whatever the fuck happens to them.
No sympathy at all for those who CHOSE this - Fuck'EM
✊FDT!
tanyev
(46,279 posts)
ananda
(31,654 posts)I wonder how they even survive in this world sometimes.
displacedvermoter
(3,720 posts)bitching about Biden and how shitty his policies were. Too late now for them to do any good. That coal barge has sailed.