Black Lung: "It has buggered my life"

The Select Committee on Health\u27s high level of activity has allowed it to be responsive to important health policy issues as they arise. The committee has undertaken the current inquiry for very compelling reasons. The resurgence of a fatal employment-related disease in Australia has drawn the Committee\u27s focus, leading to the obvious question, how could such a disease have re-emerged in Australia? The disease, variously known as black lung, coal miner’s lung or Coal Workers\u27 Pneumoconiosis (CWP) is a cruel and insidious disease which can lie dormant in an individual for many years and which will inevitably result in that person’s early death. CWP is one of many mining related lung diseases, but one which is peculiar to the mining of coal. A key driver of the committee\u27s examination of CWP\u27s re-emergence has been to promote prevention and early intervention for those at risk