For Top Hospital, Tough Questions About Black Lung and Money

Coal companies have paid millions of dollars to Johns Hopkins Medical Institutions over the last decade for medical opinions that have been used to deny hundreds of ailing mine workers meager black lung benefits, a yearlong investigation by ABC News and the Center for Public Integrity found.

“It is a total, national disgrace,” said Sen. Jay Rockefeller, D-W.Va., of the findings. “The deck is stacked in theory and in practice against coal miners, men and women, and it is tragic.”

The head of the Hopkins unit that interprets X-rays in black lung cases, Dr. Paul Wheeler, found not a single case of severe black lung in the more than 1,500 cases decided since 2000 in which he offered an opinion, a review by ABC News and the Center found. In recent court testimony, Wheeler said the last time he recalled finding a case of severe black lung, a finding that would automatically qualify a miner for benefits under a special federal program, was in “the 1970’s or the early 80’s.”

“That’s my opinion, and I have a perfect right to my opinion,” Wheeler told ABC News in a lengthy interview in which he defended his track record. For his work, coal companies pay Hopkins $750 for each X-ray he reads for black lung, about ten times the amount miners typically pay their doctors.

Hopkins said it has no reason to doubt Wheeler’s findings, calling him “an established radiologist in good standing in his field.”

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