On March 30, 2004, the Catholic Medical Students' Association, James Patrick McFadden writing, submitted a brief, amicus curiae, on behalf of Mr. Ernest Workman Jr. in his petition before the Benefits Review Board of the United States Department of Labor. The Catholic Medical Students' Association submitted its brief in response to the Benefits Review Board's order setting oral argument to consider whether the rulemaking record contains substantial evidence that pneumoconiosis is a progressive and latent disease.

The University of Illinois at Chicago College of Medicine, the University of Illinois at Chicago Medical Center, and the School of Public Health at the University of Illinois at Chicago are all affiliated with the Black Lung Clinics Program at Cook County Hospital, an internationally acclaimed public teaching hospital where many miners are treated for pulmonary impairments that were caused or aggravated by their work-related exposure to respirable coal dust. The Catholic Medical Students believe in social justice, compassion, and ethics in the practice of medicine. For many working men and women, access to health care is a function of access to legal entitlements enabling them to purchase such care.

The Catholic Medical Students believe that the economy exists to promote the health and welfare of the individual, and thus wish to ensure that the nation's federal program for compensating coal miners suffering from work-related pulmonary disability is administered on the basis of sound medical data and evidence.