“I’m the only person to make it out of West Virginia with a full set of teeth and a college degree” has become one of my father’s most famous one-liners. Of course, in the moment it carries a sense of charming humor with a subtle gloat. But, after a knowing chuckle and a flash of reflection, the sad truth emerges. The majority of people in West Virginia are of an English or German descent, between the ages of 20 and 60, and have collectively been beaten to a pulp for decades by big industries. On top of that, this population faces the sneering mockery of everyone else in the country who looks down on them as “hillbillies,” more specifically the “mountain people” variety.  This ridicule is absolutely staggering- at what point was it socially acceptable to deride the victim of a crime? When a man is murdered by a serial killer, when has anyone made fun of the unjustifiably deceased? One look at the devastating statistics will reveal the origin of every stereotype. However, the perpetrators of the statistics are still at large, insidiously killing in broad daylight, and causing the suffering of an entire state.  

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Throughout history, the commodity most associated with West Virginia has been coal. This resource is still abundant- in 2022, the U.S. Energy Information Administration reported that West Virginia accounted for 6% of the nation’s total energy production. They are also the 2nd largest coal producer in the country, runner-up only to Wyoming (which spans 10 times as much land). Yet, despite the profusion of pure wealth, the U.S. Census Bureau published that the median household income in West Virginia is only $55,948 per year, significantly lower than the national average of $74,580 a year. The missing factor in this equation is the billions of dollars made annually by the “higher-ups” of the coal industry, which although currently declining, still reaps the benefits of labor from one of the most dangerous jobs in America.  

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Between the late 1800’s and early-to-mid 1900’s, mining companies had built towns deep in the hollers surrounding their mines. They became not only the employer, but also the landlord, banker, and judge. The National Coal Heritage Site states, “Since these towns were located in isolated areas, the company store offered the only option for buying groceries, mining tools and other goods. Most company stores also contained the local post office and payroll office. As the only store in town, companies were not threatened by competition. They often charged exorbitant prices compared to what people in cities paid for the same items.” This labor exploitation spurred the Coal Wars, a series of strikes and struggles between the miners and the industry. The miners wanted freedom of speech and assembly, safer working conditions, and better wages. The industry wanted to keep control of their workers. The pot boiled over in 1921 with the unjust murder of miner-supporter Sid Hatfield (yes, as in the Hatfields and McCoys). This resulted in the Battle of Blair Mountain, which has been historically cited as the largest armed uprising since the Civil War. The National Parks Service observed that, “As mine owners focused on market competition, they ignored the plight of the workers who generated their revenue.” Though the Coal Wars are long over, this legacy of exploitation by the coal industry still lives on.  

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In the coal mining industry of West Virginia alone, from 1886 to present day, there have been 119 documented mine explosions killing hundreds of workers and disabling hundreds more. This has also given rise to some of the worst cancer rates in the country and an overall life expectancy that is 5 years shorter than the national average. Some devastating examples include the Monongah Explosion in 1907, which claimed the lives of 361 men, and the 1914 Eccles Explosion that killed 183. The West Virginia Archives relate this testimony from the Monongah disaster: “The scenes at the mines during the work of rescue were pitiful in the extreme. For several days frantic women grouped about the opening of the mines and their shrieks of agony were enough to move the hardest heart to pity. Grief-stricken mothers, wives, sweethearts and sisters waited and watched and wept.” This tragedy keeps repeating itself- the most recent of these disasters in West Virginia was the Upper Big Branch Explosion in 2010, which killed 29 miners. Coal miners not only face the constant threat of death during their job, but also abysmal health for the rest of their lives. The CDC reports that West Virginia has the third worst cancer rate in America, with 177 deaths per 100,000 people. This health risk comes from direct inhalation of toxic chemicals in coal and also from chemical pollution into the water supply and soil of towns surrounding the coal mines. Throughout the years, exposure to these substances has harmed thousands of innocent lives. 

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Continuing the pattern of the ruination caused by big industry exploitation, the West Virginia Public Broadcasting reports that 55.2% of the state’s work force is classified as manual labor. A byproduct of the dominance of physical labor jobs has been the lack of education, and vice versa. The jobs that are available don’t usually require higher education, so it is rarely pursued. Also, physical labor jobs don’t pay as well as jobs that come with a higher education. So even if someone wanted to pursue that path, it would be difficult to afford. Money that could be spent on college is spent on rent, hospital bills, and food.  A study produced by Penn Stakes reveals that West Virginia is the least educated state in America, with a 12.6% score on the education index. This percentage relates to education attainment, with the national average being 47.6%. In addition, the FED Economic Data reports that only 24% of West Virginians hold a bachelor’s degree or higher. Despite what is implied by the statistics, these people are not lacking in intelligence. They have just been taken advantage of for ages and put in this position by big businesses in mining, agriculture, manufacturing. These industries have used whatever means necessary to keep them under their corporate thumb. This practice began with coal, but over the years has been adopted by arguably worse industries who have siphoned all the life out of West Virginians for a profit.  

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 To follow the money trail even further, one of the exploiters that has gleaned the most from the suffering of these people has been the pharmaceutical industry. The CDC reports that West Virginia has had the highest death rate from fentanyl overdoses in the country by a 16% margin. Moreover, the American Addiction Center published that West Virginia has a fatal overdose rate of 90 per 100,000 people (the worst in the country), with 83% of those overdoses involving opioids. Take for example OxyContin, which made its debut in 1996 and precipitated the first wave of the opioid epidemic: The Sackler family, who owned Purdue Pharma, created this drug to treat “moderate to severe chronic pain.” A doctor would never prescribe a narcotic for this kind of pain, so the Sackler family had Curtis Wright at the FDA create an unprecedented label for their drug. This was the first time in history that a Class-2 narcotic was labeled “less addictive”. It was later revealed that no studies were done on the addictiveness of OxyContin, and the FDA granted the label due to the claims that the drug performed as a “slow release” in the body. Two years after Curtis Wright gave the Sacklers a strikingly unique label that allowed them to make billions of dollars, he left the FDA and accepted a position at Purdue Pharma where he made over twice his FDA salary.  

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Since OxyContin is prescribed for chronic pain, Purdue Pharma targeted a consumer group that includes people suffering from injuries and disease- largely manual labor workers located in Appalachia. The CDC reports that over one million Americans have died since the distribution of these “less addictive pain pills” were introduced in the late 1990’s. Ground zero of this crisis was in Huntington, West Virginia. Addiction correspondent Brian Mann writes that 81 million opioid pills were shipped to this one city- wreaking devastation on the entire population while adding to the 12 to 13 billion dollars made by the company pushing them. Corporations who abuse humans for monetary gain are the definition of evil. They found a group of people who had already been abused by other industries, which had forced them into poverty and chronic pain, then took this population and peddled their poison under the guise of a “miracle drug.” Purdue Pharma claimed OxyContin would make their pain disappear, when all along they knew it would just make them addicted. The nationally aired commercial that Purdue Pharma released for OxyContin touted a “1% addiction rate” statistic that was intentionally misleading. The Center of Alcohol and Substance Abuse Studies published, “The Purdue Pharma commercial wants people in pain to become prescription OxyContin users. However, the scientific study from which the commercial’s 1% addiction rate statistic is pulled does not apply to prescription OxyContin users. It applies only to patients undergoing hospitalized, regimented care— a very different environment to self-administration.” Unfortunately, their strategy worked. The U.S. Census states that over 780 million pills were shipped to the state of West Virginia, which is equivalent to 421 pills per every resident. Although these facts are devastating, they pale in comparison to the most sinister industry of all- the American food industry. 

To run through some fast facts, the CDC reports that 35% of Americans are obese. In West Virginia, it’s 41.2%, which makes it the worst in the country. In addition to this statistic, 35% of West Virginian children are also obese. This leads to other health conditions, such as diabetes. The American Diabetes Association published that 15.2% of West Virginians have diabetes— also the worst rate in the country. The West Virginia Department of Health released information stating that their population has the worst arthritis rate, worst heart attack rate, and worst overall cardiovascular disease prevalence in America. This data is astounding— how is it that a state tucked away in the mountains, with only a total population of 1.7 million people, has the worst health in the entire country?  

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Jamie Oliver, the famous British chef, tried to find the answer to this question in 2010, after Huntington, West Virginia was named the “unhealthiest city in America”. He went to the local elementary school cafeteria, where he found “an Alladin’s cave of processed crap” in the freezers. In his documentary, Food Revolution, he brought a cornucopia of fresh foods into a first-grade classroom. The children could identify a bottle of ketchup; they could not identify fresh tomatoes on a vine. Naturally, the citizens of this community were not happy about how the documentary portrayed them. Jamie Oliver had gone about it all wrong- he had embarrassed these people for something that wasn’t their fault. The “luminous strawberry milk” and “breakfast pizza” he had seen in the cafeteria shockingly met every USDA regulation for public school food. So why did he point the fingers at the lunch ladies, who had absolutely no control over the bureaucratic red tape? He should’ve pointed the finger at the government regulations that prevented children from having access to fresh food but made artificial food companies billions of dollars. 

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In many European countries certain food additives, synthetic dyes, and preservatives are illegal. This includes products like Twinkies and Skittles, plus all U.S. corn, chicken, milk, and beef. In America, these products are not only legal, but they are heavily marketed and shoved down our throats daily. One can hardly wonder why the European obesity rate is half the American rate. For example, products like Ritz crackers contain hydrogenated cottonseed oil. The FDA deems this chemical “not generally recognized as safe,” but they are still on the shelves in every supermarket. Synthetic dyes like Red 40 and Yellow 5 have been proven to have negative effects on children’s behavior if consumed over a long period of time, but they are in almost every candy in every gas station across the country. Trans fats, which consist of hydrogen added to vegetable oil, have been proven to increase the risk of strokes and heart disease. Growth hormones, such as rBST (developed by Monsanto), that are fed to animals to make them meatier or produce more milk are also eventually consumed by the humans that ingest them. The amount of artificial food that Americans consume daily is terrifying, but the government allows it to happen.  

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In West Virginia, 28.8% percent of the population drinks a soda daily. The most popular soda in this state is Mountain Dew. A 16-ounce bottle of Mountain Dew has 61 grams of sugar, which is over twice the recommended daily limit of sugar consumption (according to the World Health Organization). Add this to a heavily pushed and readily available fast-food breakfast, lunch, and dinner. If you’re aware that fast food has preservatives and synthetic chemicals that will kill you, you might try the grocery store, but there’s not much shelter there. Even the “fresh fruit” has been doused in pesticides, such as glyphosate, which has been proven to cause cancer. The US Department of Agriculture reports that “Even after being carefully washed or peeled, nearly 70 percent of fruit and vegetables sold in the U.S. contained pesticide residues.” The food industry has made it to where there is nowhere to hide, and the people of West Virginia have suffered extensive losses for their gain. 

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Lobbies like Big Agriculture push this venom and control Washington. Karen Perry Stillerman, deputy director of the Food and Environment Program at the Union of Concerned Scientists, reports that “Agribusiness interests spent a huge sum of money—$523 million dollars—lobbying Congress over the past five years”. They are monsters who target groups they know they can take advantage of. They get children addicted to foods that will eventually kill them, but at least before they die, they can make these industries billions of dollars. These big businesses must answer to every person suffering from chronic disease caused by food additives, every diabetic who has had to have a limb amputated due to diabetic complications, and every obese child who looks forward to a shorter life than his parents. None of it is the victim’s fault. Few of them even know what they are eating, or that their food is just delicious, disguised poison. The death toll rises every year, and their blood is on the food industry’s hands. Big food industries have committed horrible atrocities and are still profiting. As exhibited previously with the health statistics, the people they have exploited the most have been West Virginians. 

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The plight of the West Virginians, brought on by big industry exploitation, has been the subject of cruel mockery. The fault has commonly and erroneously been put on this population of people who have been beaten down for generations. Through no fault of their own, the coal industry, pharmaceutical industry, and food industry have squeezed every last penny out of their worn-down wallets. I never met my great-grandfather, but he was a coal miner in Rhodell, West Virginia who went years without seeing the sun. He would wake up and get to work underground before the sun rose, and by the time his shift was over, it had already set again. These are the most resilient, hardworking people in America. The next time you see the mocking finger pointing and laughing at these survivors, tell the jokester to point a bit higher- directly at the industries that profited from their suffering. 

 

 

Works Cited 

 

Division of Health Promotion and Chronic Disease. “Statistics about the Population of West Virginia.” Fast Facts, West Virginia Department of Health, 2024, dhhr.wv.gov/hpcd/data_reports/Pages/Fast-Facts.aspx. 

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“U.S. Energy Information Administration - EIA - Independent Statistics and Analysis.” EIA, 18 Jan. 2024, www.eia.gov/state/?sid=WV#:~:text=In%202022%2C%20West%20Virginia%20was%20the%20second-largest%20coal,base%20in%20the%20nation%2C%20after%20Wyoming%20and%20Illinois. 

 

Bureau, United States Census. “West Virginia Income and Poverty.” Explore Census Data, 2023, data.census.gov/all?q=West%2BVirginia%2BIncome%2Band%2BPoverty. 

 

State of West Virginia. “Company Towns.” Company Towns, 2024, coalheritage.wv.gov/coal_history/Pages/Company-Towns.aspx. 

 

National Parks Service. “Introduction to the West Virginia Mine Wars (U.S. National Park Service).” National Parks Service, U.S. Department of the Interior, 17 Jan. 2024, www.nps.gov/articles/000/introduction-to-the-west-virginia-mine-wars.htm#:~:text=To%20make%20matters%20worse%2C%20miners%20in%20the%20state,other%20mining%20state%20in%20the%20greater%20Midwest%20region. 

 

“WV Mine Disasters 1884 to Present.” WV Office of Miners’ Health Safety and Training, 10 Nov. 2021, minesafety.wv.gov/historical-statistical-data/wv-mine-disasters-1884-to-present/. 

 

West Virginia Archives and History. “Monongah Mine Disaster.” Monongah Mine Disaster, Jan. 1908, archive.wvculture.org/history/disasters/monongah03.html. 

 

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Association, American Lung. “Tobacco Trends Brief: Rates by State.” Tobacco Trends Brief: Rates By State | American Lung Association, 2023, www.lung.org/research/trends-in-lung-disease/tobacco-trends-brief/rates-by-state. 

 

Douglas, Eric. “Labor Force Participation Continues to Lag in W.Va.” West Virginia Public Broadcasting, 26 Oct. 2021, wvpublic.org/labor-force-participation-continues-to-lag-in-w-va/#:~:text=In%20West%20Virginia%2C,it%20is%2055.2%20percent. 

 

“Least Educated States 2024.” 2024, www.datapandas.org/ranking/least-educated-states. Accessed 14 Sept. 2024. 

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“Bachelor’s Degree or Higher for West Virginia.” FRED, 12 Sept. 2024, fred.stlouisfed.org/series/GCT1502WV. 

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CDC. “Drug Overdose Mortality by State.” Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, 1 Mar. 2022, www.cdc.gov/nchs/pressroom/sosmap/drug_poisoning_mortality/drug_poisoning.htm. 

 

American Addiction Center. “Top 10 US States with Drug Overdose Deaths [Updated 2024].” American Addiction Centers, 26 Apr. 2024, americanaddictioncenters.org/overdose/top-10-us-states. 

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Akhtar, Allana. “An FDA Official Who Led the Approval of OxyContin Got a $400,000 Gig at Purdue Pharma a Year Later, a New Book Reveals.” Business Insider, Business Insider, 2 May 2021, www.businessinsider.com/fda-chief-approved-oxycontin-six-figure-gig-at-purdue-pharma-2021-5. 

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Mann, Brian. “More than a Million Americans Have Died from Overdoses during the Opioid Epidemic.” NPR, NPR, 30 Dec. 2021, www.npr.org/2021/12/30/1069062738/more-than-a-million-americans-have-died-from-overdoses-during-the-opioid-epidemi. 

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Mann, Brian. “Was It ‘reasonable’ to Ship 81 Million Opioid Pills to This Small West Virginia City?” NPR, NPR, 30 July 2021, www.npr.org/2021/07/30/1021676306/was-it-reasonable-to-ship-81-million-opioid-pills-to-this-small-west-virginia-ci. 

 

Au-Yeung, Angel. “Despite Years of Litigation, the Sackler Family behind OxyContin Is Still Worth Billions.” Forbes, Forbes Magazine, 12 Sept. 2023, www.forbes.com/sites/angelauyeung/2020/12/17/despite-years-of-litigation-the-sackler-family-behind-oxycontin-is-still-worth-billions/. 

 

Detrano, Joseph. “The Four-Sentence Letter Behind the Rise of OxyContin.” Center of Alcohol & Substance Use Studies, Rutgers, 2024, alcoholstudies.rutgers.edu/the-four-sentence-letter-behind-the-rise-of-oxycontin/. 

 

Camren Gandee, Julia Manley. “How Many Opioid Pills Were Shipped to West Virginia?” @politifact, 9 Oct. 2020, www.politifact.com/factchecks/2020/oct/15/david-mckinley/how-many-opioid-pills-were-shipped-west-virginia/. 

 

CDC. “Adult Obesity Prevalence Maps.” Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, 18 Jan. 2024, www.cdc.gov/obesity/php/data-research/adult-obesity-prevalence-maps.html#:~:text=Across%20states%20and%20territories%201%20DC%20had%20an,between%2035%25%20and%20less%20than%2040%25.%20More%20items. 

 

American Diabetes Association. “The Burden of Diabetes in West Virginia.” The Burden of Diabetes in West Virginia, 2024, diabetes.org/sites/default/files/2024-03/adv_2024_state_fact_west_virginia.pdf. 

 

Berg, Kriss, et al. “Food Fight: 15 Foods Banned in Europe but Legal in the US.” The Wellness Watchdog, 28 Nov. 2023, thewellnesswatchdog.com/foods-banned-in-europe/. 

 

World Population Review. “Most Popular Soda by State.” Most Popular Soda by State 2024, 2024, worldpopulationreview.com/state-rankings/most-popular-soda-by-state. 

 

Watson, Chris. “How Much Sugar Is in Mountain Dew? [Grams, Nutritional Facts].” Soda Pop Craft - Make Your Own Soft Drinks At Home, 15 Mar. 2023, sodapopcraft.com/how-much-sugar-is-in-a-mountain-dew/. 

 

Ahmed, Amel. “70 Percent of Fruit and Vegetables in the U.S. Contain Pesticide Residue, Says Report.” KQED, 10 Jan. 2024, www.kqed.org/science/1922287/70-percent-of-fruit-and-vegetables-in-the-us-has-pesticide-residue. 

 

“Lobbying to Influence Legislation Including Farm Bill Tops $500 Million.” Union of Concerned Scientists, 13 May 2024, www.ucsusa.org/about/news/agribusiness-industry-lobbying-exceeds-500-million.