We know how to prevent black lung, so why are workers still dying?

Silicosis sufferers are getting younger as Trump and the coal mining industry push back on protections Silicosis is one of the oldest workplace hazards and public health experts have known for decades how to prevent it.

Yet a new wave of workers, from Appalachian coalminers to Latino countertop fabrication workers, are developing and dying from the disease as industry fights new protections and regulators fail to defend the rules that could protect them. John Robinson’s grandfather developed black lung back when coalminers could spend decades in the mines before being diagnosed with the disease, often dying in their 60s, 70s…