Even as President Trump vows to reinvigorate America's coal industry, critics say his administration has stripped away key health protections for miners.
abcnews.go.com
For John Robinson, a retired coal miner who spent his career in the Virginia mines helping to
power America into the 21st century, not a moment passes that he isn't feeling the full effects of his black lung diagnosis.
With the support of a burdensome oxygen machine, Robinson joined a handful of other retired Central Appalachian miners to sit down with ABC News' Jay O'Brien in the heart of coal country.
"You are suffocating. You are suffocating. And that's what's going to kill you," Robinson told O'Brien. "I got a wife and two kids and two grandbabies, you know, and I want to live."
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"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."
A spokesperson for the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services said in a statement to ABC News that "the Trump Administration is committed to taking care of coal miners, who play a vital role in supporting America's energy," and that a black lung surveillance program previously run by NIOSH would be folded into a new bureau called the Administration for a Healthy America.
But the spokesperson did not say when the program's work would fully resume or how the work would continue without any of the experienced employees who have been laid off.
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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.