ABSTRACT
This chapter examines one health struggle, the black lung movement, during which the scientific authority of the medical establishment was itself questioned in the course of an intense political controversy over the definition of disease. In some instances, more prolonged and widespread struggles have developed, such as the movement for black lung compensation and the mobilization against nuclear power. The chapter explores the major changes in medical perceptions of black lung and presents evidence suggesting that the shifting perceptions have been occasioned by social and economic factors ordinarily considered extrinsic to science. It focuses on the history of black lung itself and argues that the respiratory disease burden is intimately related to the political economy of the workplace, the site of disease production. The chapter describes the battle over black lung compensation, also focuses on the strikingly different definitions of disease that miners and the medical establishment elaborated.
