Crisis in Coal Country

Federal regulators counted 99 cases of advanced black lung over a five-year period in the U.S. So why is it that hundreds of miners with the most serious stage of the disease are walking into clinics across Appalachia? That’s the question NPR’s Howard Berkes set out to answer last year. Howard ultimately found that the number of advanced black lung cases was at least 10 times the number generated by federal regulators. On this episode, Howard takes us through his reporting and explains how he found and counted cases the regulators missed. EPISODE NOTES: bit.ly/2uIxT04