Oak Hill, WV (WOAY)- We have a major update on a story we told you last month about a local attorney’s fight against cuts to the National Institute of Occupational Safety and Health, which provides critical services to coal miners.
Today, a federal judge granted a preliminary injunction that would reverse those cuts.
In her order, United States District Judge Irene Berger said that the plaintiff, Harry Wiley, has presented evidence of quote actual, concrete, imminent injury, all because of the cuts.
Wiley works at a mine in Raleigh County. A clinic diagnosed him with black lung last November.
He said that he failed to receive a response to a test he sent to the NIOSH office in Morgantown.
One of the lawyers bringing the case, Sam Petsonk, told us last month that the programs impacted by the cuts save lives.
The cuts included the chief medical officer, who was in charge of the coal mine dust lung disease screening program.
As part of the preliminary injunction, the court ordered that there be no stoppage or gap in services for miners mandated by federal law.
Those services include the black lung mobile clinics that have been offered in our area.
The federal government needs to file documents in the next 20 days to certify that services are not being disrupted.
Also today, Senator Shelley Moore Capito announced that United States Health and Human Services Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. told her that 100 NIOSH employees would be reinstated at the Morgantown office.
We will continue to follow this story and update you as we learn more.
