Mark Williams, who is now 75 years old, spent more than 50 years working in mining and the coal industry before his retirement around 15 years ago. Before that, he served in the Vietnam War. Williams was diagnosed with prostate cancer in 2015, he suspects, because of his exposure to Agent Orange, a herbicide used by the U.S. military to reduce enemy cover in the Vietnamese jungle. That diagnosis came just six years after Williams underwent open-heart surgery in 2009 to treat ischemic heart disease, which has also been linked to Agent Orange.

Medical care for those serious conditions is expensive, and could have bankrupted someone with inadequate insurance. But because of the coverage he and other miners won through the United Mine Workers of America, Williams told Salon, he didn’t have to

See Full Page