A review of Johns Hopkins University's black lung program is ongoing, the university said Tuesday, adding that it has no new information about the program, which was suspended last year after an investigative report by Chris Hamby of the Center for Public Integrity.
Hamby received a Pulitzer Prize on Monday for his work.
The head of the Johns Hopkins' unit certified to read X-rays for black lung rarely found the disease in its pathology reports, Hamby had found, in essence helping the coal industry defeat miners' claims for benefits.
JHU physician, Dr. Paul Wheeler, was one of many experts certified by the National Institute for Occupational Safety and Health's b-reader program, which qualifies physicians to serve in national pneumoconiosis programs directed at coal miners and others who suffer from dust-related illness. Wheeler did not find the severe form of the disease in more than 1,500 cases he had reviewed since 2000, the CPI report found, but other doctors looking at the same X-rays found advanced stages in nearly 400 of the cases.