The battle against black lung in Australia has only just begun as scientists remain very much in the dark on the disease , Melbourne experts warn.
Since May last year, Queensland has confirmed 15 cases of Coal Workers' Pneumoconiosis (CWP), or black lung - a fatal, incurable disease of the lungs thought to have been eradicated 30 years ago.
A man who worked in underground longwall mines for 36 years, most recently at the Carborough Downs in Central Queensland, where four other black lung cases have been identified, was diagnosed with CWP earlier this month.
The re-emergence of the potentially fatal disease has led to numerous calls this year for tighter and uniform regulations in Australian mines to control the level of coal dust that miners are exposed to.
But Professor Lou Irving, clinical director of the University of Melbourne's Lung Health Research Centre, says scientists don't even know if there is a safe level of exposure.
"There are regulations limiting the amount of dust that coal miners can be exposed to, but they have no basis in science," Prof Irving said.
"We simply do not know at what point exposure to dust triggers lung stiffening, or fibrosis and we urgently need to address this so we can catch it before it becomes incurable."
Prof Irving says the tools currently being used to diagnose miners must go beyond measuring breathing and chest X-rays in order to accurately determine the full extent of the black lung crisis in Australia.
The disease is believed to affect as many as 17 per cent of workers in Chinese coalmines, 36 per cent in Colombia and about three per cent in the United States.
At its peak in 2008, the Australian coal mining industry employed about 36,700 people, according to the Australian Bureau of Statistics.
With so much still unknown there could be hundreds more Aussie coalminers still to be diagnosed with black lung, according to the research centre's head pharmacologist, Professor Alastair Stewart.
"We suspect Australian rates will be similar to the US, but there is so much we don't know,.
"The battle against this disease is only just beginning," he said.
The CFMEU has previously said it is aware of more cases, but claims many miners have been too scared to come forward for fear of losing their jobs.
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