Superbe reportage :: From South Africa’s gold mines, billion-dollar class action emerges | Vancouver Sun
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The men - some South African, others from neighbouring Lesotho - worked deep underground for many years, often with insufficient protection. They inhaled silica dust from gold-bearing rocks and later contracted silicosis. A disease which causes shortness of breath, a persistent cough and chest pains, it makes people highly susceptible to tuberculosis, which kills. It has no known cure.
The miners are led by Richard Spoor, a provincial lawyer who won a case last year that laid the legal ground for claims for compensation.