DR. PETER INFANTE

MOYERS: What is a "chronic disease epidemiologist?" What is it that you do?

DR. INFANTE: A chronic disease epidemiologist is one that does studies to determine what causes chronic disease in our population, meaning diseases that aren't acute diseases, that often have a slow onset and are progressive and irreversible.

MOYERS: Let me take you back to April 1976, shortly after the vinyl chloride story broke. B.F. Goodrich was, once again, in the news, reporting that a number of its employees working with benzene had died from blood disease. What was your reaction?

DR. INFANTE: At the time we had begun a study of that plant to determine what the disease outcome and the mortality rates were for individuals in that facility that were exposed to benzene. And when I read that account in the newspaper, I was shocked that they had identified so many individuals who had died from leukemia in that facility. I was at NIOSH at the time, and we were concerned--

MOYERS: NIOSH is?

DR. INFANTE: NIOSH is the National Institute for Occupational Safety and Health. We do the research, and when we completed the study that I was involved in that demonstrated a five- to 10- fold elevated risk of leukemia among those workers, that was a stimulus for OSHA to issue an emergency temporary standard to protect workers from benzene exposure on the job.

MOYERS: So when all this was happening, did you, or your colleagues, go into the field to see what was going on?

DR. INFANTE: We were already there, prior to the time that story broke. We were already in, the facility, and we were copying records so that we could identify people who had worked in this benzene-exposed area where they were manufacturing a food wrap called Plyofilm [phonetic], and we had the records, and we were trying to identify these people, and follow them, to determine what they died from, in comparison to what you would expect them to die from, if they died at the natural rate of the general population. That's what an epidemiologic study involves.

MOYERS: And what did you find about the practices there?

DR. INFANTE: Workers were exposed to various levels of benzene over time. The exposures in the '40s and '50s were higher. They were progressively lowered -- recommendations were made at the time -- but even being close to the recommended limits resulted in a very high elevated risk of death from leukemia for these workers.

MOYERS: Is benzene the only thing that could account for the leukemia in those two plants?

DR. INFANTE: That's right, and there was evidence before that time, that benzene caused leukemia. There were literally hundreds, maybe thousands of case reports in the literature of individuals who had died from leukemia and other blood diseases that were related to benzene exposure, going clear back to 1897.

MOYERS: What was industry's response when you concluded that benzene had been the agent in the leukemia?

DR. INFANTE: Of course the first thing was to--which is usually the case--was to attack the study, because if the study that the evidence is based upon is no good, then you have no evidence that anything needs to be done. So they had hired consultants who came in to criticize the study and made various arguments to the effect that they weren't convincing. So there was really no cause for concern. That was one of the arguments made before the Agency when OSHA tried to regulate benzene. The other was that, "Well, no--there was no evidence that benzene caused leukemia in experimental animals. Therefore the observation that these workers were dying from leukemia related to benzene must be bogus."

MOYERS: In a sense, they denied that benzene had been responsible.

DR. INFANTE: They denied that benzene could cause leukemia, and essentially that was it, and also that there was no need to change, the current exposure limit, because the current limit was adequate, and only if they—workers. If they did develop leukemia from the benzene exposure, it was only at very high levels, not at levels that currently existed in the occupational setting at the time.

MOYERS: What did you think about their response?

DR. INFANTE: I wasn't too impressed with the response, to say the least. I thought the position was that -- and the science was at the time -- that, hey, benzene causes leukemia. I think there was no question about that. This is a cancer, and we should try to get exposures as low as we can get them. And that was OSHA's position at the time. And the industry's counter-argument was that, "Well, you can't get leukemia from anywhere below the 10 part per million exposure limit," which was the limit at the time, so, in other words, "no need to reduce the exposure." That was one of the arguments.

Another argument was that before you would get leukemia, you would develop an earlier type of blood disease, so if we just take blood samples from the workers every year, and evaluate them, and if they have some blood disease, we'll remove them from exposure, and then maybe they won't go on to develop the leukemia.

MOYERS: What'd you think about that, as a scientist?

DR. INFANTE: I thought that certainly is not preventing disease. If you wait until a worker develops the disease that you identify from taking his blood sample, and then you remove him from the exposure, that's too late. Some might reverse at that stage, but there was scientific evidence at the time that individuals who developed this type of aplastic anemia have an elevated risk of then developing leukemia. So, that wouldn't work.

MOYERS: Goodrich stated, at the time, that it wasn't aware of any published literature or findings which demonstrated benzene as a cancer-causing agent. But didn't Goodrich have access to the same literature that you did?

DR. INFANTE: I would think that they, they had to have had their heads in the sand to make such a statement in 1977, because there was plenty of evidence that benzene caused leukemia by 1977. The study that I did when I was at NIOSH was just indicating how high that excess of risk was. There was ample evidence, in the scientific literature, that benzene caused leukemia, way prior to 1977. And that's not only my interpretation, but the interpretation of scientists who published articles in the scientific literature, including staff from various chemical companies.

MOYERS: And yet they didn't acknowledge this, publicly?

DR. INFANTE: They were making a different argument before the agency.

MOYERS: Which was?

DR. INFANTE: There were several arguments. One was that they weren't convinced that benzene caused leukemia, but if it did cause leukemia, it was at much higher levels than currently existed in the work place. Therefore, there's no reason to change the exposure limit for workers exposed to benzene.

MOYERS: But there was no doubt in your mind that workers were at risk who were using benzene in those plants?

DR. INFANTE: There was no doubt, at all. I think most scientists that I spoke with. I think the only ones that had a contrary view were some scientists that represented industry.

MOYERS: Let's fast-forward a year later to April 1977, Eulah Bingham has become President Carter's new head of OSHA. She issues an emergency order, setting a very strict benzene exposure standard, and this was, as I understand it, only the sixth emergency standard issued by OSHA in its history. Why? Why was the benzene situation deemed an emergency?

DR. INFANTE: It was deemed an emergency by the Assistant Secretary because of the high risk that was identified in the study that I had done when I was at NIOSH, the high risk of leukemia that these workers had that were exposed to benzene. Plus there was a lot of information in the literature, prior to that time, of hundreds of individuals that had developed leukemia or other blood diseases related to benzene exposure, going clear back to before the turn of the 20th century. So, clearly, something had to be done.

MOYERS: When OSHA issued the emergency standard, what was the chemical industry's response?

DR. INFANTE: They fought the standard in court, so that that emergency standard was stayed by the courts.

MOYERS: They tried to block the suit in court?

DR. INFANTE: They did block the standard from being promulgated, yes.

MOYERS: Where did they file that motion?

DR. INFANTE: The Fifth Circuit Court of Appeals.

MOYERS: In New Orleans.

DR. INFANTE: Yeah.

MOYERS: Why do you think they went there?

DR. INFANTE: Well, at that time, that's where the industry usually filed challenges to standards, in the Fifth Circuit Court of Appeals, because I think they usually got a favorable outcome there. If you're gonna go to the well to get water, you have to go to the well where you think there's water.

MOYERS: The Fifth Circuit Court was right in the heart of what was popularly known as Cancer Alley, in Louisiana.

DR. INFANTE: That's right.

MOYERS: We have some documents that show that the industry also formed a benzene panel, and initially funded it to the tune of about $500,000.

DR. INFANTE: I was just told about that recently, but I wasn't aware that they had this benzene panel.

MOYERS: That its purpose was "to develop a sound technical base" --I'm quoting-- "that could be used by industry to challenge the proposed regulations." Sound plausible to you?

DR. INFANTE: Absolutely. I mean, that, that is usually what happens when a regulatory agency tries to enact some measure of public health to prevent disease in the work place, or in the general environment. It's going to be challenged. It's common practice.

MOYERS: By industry?

DR. INFANTE: Yes.

MOYERS: A few months later, OSHA held hearings on the proposed standard that it was recommending, and among others, representatives from Dow Chemical Company were present. One of Dow's own geneticists had conducted a study that proved chromosomal damage at low levels of exposure. The industry didn't mention that study?

DR. INFANTE: They didn't release that study until after the hearing record closed. So the results from that study could not be used as part of the evidence that OSHA used to justify lowering the benzene exposure limit in the work place.

MOYERS: Help me to understand the meaning of that. What were they doing? Did they have material that would have been useful in the hearings which they didn't share with the people conducting the hearings?

DR. INFANTE: I believe so, yes, and in fact, I wrote to them and told them that I had heard they had done this study, and that they had identified in the study a significant excess of chromosomal breakage among their workers exposed to benzene. Chromosomal breakage. This relates to DNA. It's the DNA in the cells that have to be affected in order for a cancer to develop.

So they had a study among their own work force that showed a significant increase in chromosomal breakage. And I wrote to them and said, "I would like to have the results of that study, I understand those data exist." And they wrote back and said, "Well, the study wasn't" ­that they were still doing more work on, the study, and they were looking at the industrial hygiene aspects of it to determine what levels those workers were exposed to.

So I wrote back and I said, well, look, it's one of two things. OSHA is doing regulation, now, to protect workers from exposure to benzene. If your workers have chromosomal breakage and they're exposed below the current limit, that's important information that the Agency needs.

If they're not exposed below the current limit, --then that means they're exposed above the current limit, and they have chromosomal breakage. Therefore, you must be in violation of the current standard. So which is it?

MOYERS: And?

DR. INFANTE: And so things went on for several months before the study was released. And then when the study was released, they claimed that exposures were usually below the regulatory limit, but from time to time there were excursions above the limit, and that may have been what was responsible for the chromosomal breakage.

MOYERS: So they knew that workers were exposed to risks from time to time?

DR. INFANTE: That's correct. They had evidence from a study that they conducted that demonstrated their workers had chromosomal breakage from benzene exposure.

MOYERS: But they hadn't shared this with the Agency during the hearings?

DR. INFANTE: They hadn't shared it with the Agency during the hearings because they said the study wasn't completed. They should have given us the results. But they claimed that the study wasn't completed, and, and as a matter of good science, you shouldn't release the study till the study's completed.

MOYERS: Help us to understand. Why was the industry fighting so hard against the benzene standard?

DR. INFANTE: Well, I just assumed that they have to spend money to reduce the exposures, and they would prefer not to do that if they don't have to.

MOYERS: Were they worried, do you think, that this treatment by benzene on the part of the government might lead to a precedent for other chemicals?

DR. INFANTE: That's possible. I hadn't extrapolated to what might go on in other situations, but I think just even specifically with benzene, they didn't want to be regulated. They didn't want to reduce exposures; it costs money. Most companies don't want to be regulated. They don't want to reduce exposures. There are some companies that are very good about reducing exposures, in fact have come in and told us about problems and they've reduced exposures on their own.

But I'm saying the petrochemical industry, at the time of these benzene proceedings back in the late '70s, they weren't interested in reducing exposures.

MOYERS: Even though they knew that workers were exposed and that the exposure could lead to serious consequences for the worker's health?

DR. INFANTE: Even though they knew that, yes, because they were arguing that the disease that workers experienced only came about as a result of high levels of exposure. And yet they had some evidence, from their own study, that workers exposed to low levels of benzene were having their DNA affected, or were experiencing chromosomal breakage.

MOYERS: What happens when one's DNA is affected by a chemical like that?

DR. INFANTE: Depending on what types of lesions take place, you can then end up developing cancer or the cells could die.

MOYERS: I've read from articles published at the time, that OSHA's cancer policy was very controversial. What was that policy?

DR. INFANTE: The policy that OSHA had at the time was that for a substance that was known to cause cancer, since there's no threshold that's been identified for a cancer-causing substance and the mechanisms by which the cancers are caused are not known, and still are not known -- that companies should reduce the exposures to the lowest feasible limit. And by "feasibility," I mean what is economically feasible and what is technologically feasible. That was the policy. After the benzene decision of 1980, that could no longer be the policy.

MOYERS: Let me see if I understand that. If a substance causes cancer, no level is safe, and you have to reduce the exposures to the lowest possible level?

DR. INFANTE: To the level that's feasible, economically and technologically. In other words, you could not dislodge, an entire industry or an entire sector. You could reduce the exposures to the amount where, the companies could still make a profit, and not go any lower than that.

MOYERS: That was the policy?

DR. INFANTE: That was the policy. That would be the lowest feasible limit.

MOYERS: How did that change?

DR. INFANTE: That policy changed because of the Supreme Court's decision on benzene, which said that the Secretary of Labor could no longer reduce exposures to the lowest feasible limit. The Agency had first to determine that there was a significant risk of developing disease at the current exposure limit and that that risk could be significantly reduced by any change in practice that would be required of the industry. So you could not automatically then go to the lowest feasible limit. The decision was saying that, "Well, maybe if it was possible to go from this level down to this level-- because of economic and technological feasibility-- maybe you don't have to go to that level."

"Maybe you could stay here because you've eliminated most of the risk at this level. You don't have to go down to that level." So because of that, we now do much more sophisticated analyses involving quantitative risk assessment whereby we try to estimate how much disease will occur from various exposure levels. We can't simply go to the lowest feasible limit.

MOYERS: Was it industry's position that there is a safe level for carcinogens?

DR. INFANTE: Yes. I would say, generally, that's their position today. That there are threshold levels for carcinogens, all carcinogens.

MOYERS: And what's your position on that?

DR. INFANTE: My position is--and of most scientists that I've spoken with--is that a threshold has not been identified for any carcinogen, so that some exposure will result in some risk. Now that risk can be very low if the exposure's very low. But what it means is the only time you have absolutely zero risk is when you have zero exposure. That does not mean "the sky is falling." Sometimes adversaries try to paint the picture that, "Well, if you say there's no threshold for the carcinogens, that means we have to go to zero exposure."

That doesn't mean that at all; doesn't mean that at all. It means that you go to a level for which -- if you can identify it -- where you think that the risk may be insignificant. And that's a social decision, that's a policy decision, that's a decision that's made by regulatory agencies. How much disease do you want or are you willing to allow workers to experience?

How much disease are you allowing the general population to experience, and saying that's okay? That's a social decision on what a significant risk is.

MOYERS: I want to stay with your study for a moment. It was your study of benzene that was the basis for the government's proposed benzene standard?

DR. INFANTE: For the emergency standard, yes.

MOYERS: And then what happened?

DR. INFANTE: Well, the Agency then issued an emergency standard, but it was stayed before it could take effect.

MOYERS: By the Fifth Circuit Court?

DR. INFANTE: Yes. The Agency issued a final standard and it was stayed before it could take Effect. Aand so it took the Agency 10 years to finally get on the books a new exposure limit to reduce benzene exposure to workers on the job.

MOYERS: And how did that finally come about?

DR. INFANTE: It finally came about because OSHA had to have a, a new hearing, invite comment, have the discussion, do quantitative risk assessment, listen to all the arguments, respond to the arguments, do new economic analyses to see what it would cost for the limits we thought, companies could get to. And that's time-consuming. It takes a long time to do that.

MOYERS: And industry was fighting every step of the way through those 10 years?

DR. INFANTE: Through those ten years, yes, but when we got to the final standard, they didn't fight the final standard of 1987.

MOYERS: Ten years later?

DR. INFANTE: Ten years later. They were already able to meet it. In fact most places were five times lower than the final standard.

MOYERS: So they met, finally, the standard that they refused to meet in the beginning?

DR. INFANTE: That's right.

MOYERS: Is it fair to say that we waited too long to take the right steps, not only about Benzene and vinyl chloride, but about PCBs, DDTs and other chemicals that have now been banned or curtailed? Have we waited too long?

DR. INFANTE: We're always slow to respond to evidence that chemicals are causing disease among workers, or among the general population. I think we're always slow to respond to that, because it takes a long time to evaluate all of the scientific evidence. Then you have to evaluate the economic impact, what you expect to do, and then through all this there's a lot of argument that takes place about the science.

There's argument about what's economically feasible. And we have a democratic society and part of that is that people are allowed to argue. We're a very litigious society. So we argue about everything, and unfortunately, as a result of all this argument, workers, in my opinion, unnecessarily die from diseases that could have been prevented had companies taken the steps that they could have taken with the technology that was available at the time.

MOYERS: Let me back up a moment to that Supreme Court decision. That decision came down in what year?

DR. INFANTE: 1980.

MOYERS: How did it get to be an issue for the Court?

DR. INFANTE: Well, --when OSHA issued its final regulation in 1978, that regulation was challenged, again, in the Fifth Circuit Court of Appeals, and the standard to protect the workers was stayed by the Fifth Circuit Court, and that stay was appealed to the Supreme Court, and then the case was argued before the Supreme Court, and then the Justices issued their final determination in 1980.

MOYERS: The petrochemical industry's position before the Court, in essence, was that a chemical is innocent until proven guilty. That you have to go through all this process to prove that the chemical is harmful.

DR. INFANTE: That's correct.

MOYERS: How can you reach a sound public policy unless you have the knowledge and information that is required?

DR. INFANTE: Well, with benzene, we did have the information. But you hit upon a good point for the future, and for situations where we don't always have every "t" crossed and every "i" dotted.

And today, I would say we're in the area of the anti-public health attitude that pre-dominates, which means that you have to have exact information and confirmation that this substance causes cancer in these people and it's beyond any reasonable doubt before regulatory action is recommended.

MOYERS: The chemical is innocent until proven guilty.

DR. INFANTE: Yes, absolutely.

MOYERS: So workers remain at risk because of the bias on behalf of the innocence of the chemical.

DR. INFANTE: Yes, because it's very difficult to prove that something causes cancer, so sometimes you have to act on knowledge that's less than complete. But with educated scientists who would think that it's more likely than not that, "Yes, this causes this disease, this causes this cancer. It's not beyond total doubt, but we think that it probably causes cancer." Therefore, we need to do something about it.

If we have to wait until there's confirmation in humans, we're not practicing public health. We're not protecting the workers.

MOYERS: Is it practical to think that we could hold a chemical off the market until its consequences are known?

DR. INFANTE: Well, the companies are pre-testing chemicals now, before they introduce them into the marketplace. Many chemicals are being tested, which is good, so that maybe they won't put online a chemical that demonstrates certain types of toxicity or genetic damage. They'll go maybe to another type of chemical. That's the place to do it, because it's cheaper, before you get online. Once you get that chemical in commerce, then you've established all your engineering, all your technology.

Now to remove that from commerce, that's when it becomes very expensive and that's when it becomes very contentious to try to reduce exposure to that chemical.

So many companies are pre-testing chemicals before they introduce them into commerce.

MOYERS: What happens when a chemical is finally regulated? How does the government ensure that what it says must happen happens?

DR. INFANTE: Do you mean are companies complying with regulations?

MOYERS: Yes. How do you regulate?

DR. INFANTE: Well, we issue regulations and then, you know, we publish that final regulation in the FEDERAL REGISTER, which is the government's newspaper, and we give companies so many months to comply, sometimes years, before certain parts of the new standard take effect. Then we have health and safety compliance officers that go out and inspect facilities to see that these facilities are complying with the regulation.

MOYERS: So -- compliance is monitored by OSHA's own health officers?

DR. INFANTE: Health and safety officers, yes. We have health and safety compliance officers that go out to industrial establishments to inspect them, to determine whether or not they're complying with the standards. There's resistance to enforcement of regulations by some companies. People that are doing business, they don't want the Government interfering with their production.

MOYERS: Understandable.

DR. INFANTE: So I think that they would be in favor of not having more compliance officers. Those who are working in the establishments, I think, would probably be in favor of having more inspections, so that they could be assured that they're working under healthy working conditions.

MOYERS: Once a regulation is issued and OSHA begins to attempt to monitor and enforce compliance, what does industry do?

DR. INFANTE: Well, some comply with the regulations. Sometimes they've complied even before they're issued because they realize that they're coming. You also find, operations where companies are not in compliance, and then we issue citations in those situations.

MOYERS: Once a regulation is issued, does industry go to Congress to appeal that regulation or resist that regulation?

DR. INFANTE: Once a regulation has been issued, you can appeal that, you can go to the Court of Appeals, and appeal the standard before it takes effect. Before the regulation takes effect you can go to the Court of Appeals and present your arguments for why you think that there should be a stay of that standard for whatever arguments you want to make. That happens quite often.

MOYERS: Does it happen, quite often, that industry goes to Congress and appeals to members of Congress to call up OSHA and say, "You know, you sure you want to be doing this?"

DR. INFANTE: That happens even when you start the regulatory process. That happens all the way through, yes.

MOYERS: Tell me about that process. Have you seen it at work? Have you felt its consequences?

DR. INFANTE: Oh, sure. I mean, that's the normal way business is done. You go to wherever you can go to seek relief. If you need to contact your local congressman, you could make an argument that "Hey, look, we think this regulation's going to put us out of business, and we don't think there's a need for it." So, this is a constituent. The congressman will write to the Agency and say, "Hey, what's going on here?" Don't know necessarily that the congressman's taken a position, but they're inquiring for their constituent.

MOYERS: Haven't members of Congress been known to threaten to cut off funding from OSHA, if standards are issued or regulations are enforced?

DR. INFANTE: That's happened, yes.

MOYERS: Americans seem to think that there is a regulatory process in place that protects them from the harmful effects of chemicals. Is that true?

DR. INFANTE: I'll have to limit my comments to where I have experience. That's in the occupational setting. And in the occupational setting, I think government has a very poor track record of protecting workers from disease and death on the job. It's not that we're not trying hard. I think we're trying very hard against very difficult odds, and I think the Agency recognizes that - that we're not doing the job that we need to do to protect workers from disease and death on the job.

MOYERS: What are those odds you're up against?

DR. INFANTE: Oh, the odds that we're up against, in my opinion, is that regulation is expensive, we're limited in the amount of money that the Agency has to spend to regulate, or that we have to spend on contracts to have people evaluate data for us, from the private sector, And it normally takes a long time and it's laborious to evaluate all of the data that you need to evaluate in order to reduce exposure to a toxic substance in the workplace.

There's just so many hoops to go through, so many people to contact, to get information from. What the diseases are, what it's gonna cost to lower the exposures, what we need to get to. And almost everything that we do is argued, argued before the Agency, it's argued in Courts of Appeal. So it takes years, if not decades, to complete regulations.

A number of years ago, I published an article in a scientific journal, called "Benzene Toxicity: Studying A Subject To Death," and by that I meant that by studying and restudying, and studying the subject, that it's resulting in the death of the workers that are currently exposed. Because while we're studying and we're evaluating data, the exposures stay the same and workers keep dying.

MOYERS: Don't we have to accept some risks in the work place?

DR. INFANTE: Oh, absolutely yes. Nothing is risk-free. But I think the goal should be, in a civilized society, to have the same probability of surviving if you're a blue-collar worker that an individual like you and I would have as white-collar workers. Nothing's risk-free. But why does a blue-collar worker have to die early, simply because of their job?

Shouldn't they have the same probability of surviving to age 80 that you and I have? And, right now, they don't have that. That's the goal. It's called equal justice, in my opinion.

MOYERS: You've said that we arrive at these decisions, these standards, these regulations, through a democratic process, give-and-take, argument, persuasion, refutation, challenge, debate, and that, ultimately, we arrive at a regulation, a standard, a policy. But is that really how the system works in Washington today?

DR. INFANTE: Well, that's how it works, and of course, the more resources you have to represent your view, the the stronger that view is. In other words, whoever has the most resources, can dominate, at least for a long period of time.

MOYERS: And resources means money?

DR. INFANTE: Money, yes, of course. With money, you can buy analyses, economic analyses, scientific analyses. You can do lots of things to participate in the process and also to delay the process.

MOYERS: But if you're a worker and you don't have money, you don't participate in the decisions affecting your life?

DR. INFANTE: Of course you don't, of course you don't.

MOYERS: So when "push comes to shove," where does the power lie in this debate?

DR. INFANTE: I think the power obviously lies where most of the money is. That's what has the most influence.

MOYERS: Contributions to campaigns. Money.

DR. INFANTE: It's money. You can buy a lot, a lot of analyses, and you can do analyses and re-analyses, and more analyses, and you can have lots of influence. That's no secret.

MOYERS: You can buy more representation.

DR. INFANTE: You can do what you need to do to influence the process.

MOYERS: But, you know, the chemical industry repeatedly claims that it's a highly regulated Industry.

DR. INFANTE: That's not the experience I've had in the occupational setting. I can't speak for general environmental areas, but I would say that we do very little regulation in the occupational setting. Since 1971, when the Occupational Safety and Health Act was implemented, we have successfully regulated less than 30 substances or agents in the work place, and of those, thirteen of them were in one rulemaking. So that certainly doesn't regulate any over-regulation.

That's just an argument people make because they don't want to have reasonable regulation.

MOYERS: Thirty in 30 years?

DR. INFANTE: Thirty in 30 years, yes. At most. It might be even fewer than 30.

MOYERS: How would you characterize government behavior in the regulatory area? You refer to the three Ts.

DR. INFANTE: From my personal experience in government and the regulatory arena, I always characterize the three T's as the way we operate. And that is "turbulence, timidity, and tokenism" in contrast to over-regulation. By that I mean that when a hazard is identified, there's turbulence. It's like, "Oh, my God, what are we going to do about this? Look at the impact on this. How are we going to have the resources to deal with it 'cause we have limited resources."

And then this timidity that, "Oh, look, you know, who are we going to regulate here?" And "Are we going to be allowed to regulate there?" And then the tokenism is that at the end of all of this argument, we drip a little bit out of the regulatory pipeline. That's what I call the tokenism. And the Agency recognizes that it has a difficult job to do against such great odds.

MOYERS: And the odds include the fact that when you do regulate, the company can go to Congress. They can go beyond Congress to the courts. They have all kinds of ways of delay and do little?

DR. INFANTE: There are all kinds of ways to delay regulations, and many of them seem very noble like, "We need more study." Who would disagree with that? You need more study to evaluate. And my response to that is, yes, you need study, you need good study, and you also need, in terms of public health, to make reasonable determinations.

Otherwise, you end up studying a subject to death -- which often is to the death of the workers.

MOYERS: You're a civil servant, what some people call a bureaucrat.

DR. INFANTE: Yes.

MOYERS: Should you be speaking out this way?

DR. INFANTE: Well, I'm giving you my experience. You're asking me these questions. I'm giving you my experience as someone who's had 25 years in government and over 20 with a regulatory agency. This is my personal experience. You ask me the questions. I'll answer them.

MOYERS: Let me read from a few documents that we have. Here's an internal memo from 1958, 43 years ago, from Esso Oil's medical research division. This came out of their own medical center.

"Most authorities agree that in light of present knowledge, the only level which can be considered absolutely safe for prolonged exposure is zero."

Now they knew that, according to the records, in 1958. And yet this information was not made public, and when finally, in the mid 1970's, 15-to-20 years later, you tried to do something about it, the industry fought you for another ten years.

DR. INFANTE: That's right.

MOYERS: What's that say to you?

DR. INFANTE: Well, one thing it tells you is that, you know, there's certainly information that the medical department has, and that information, is not being conveyed to the workers, and that information is not being used to modify behavior by the company.

MOYERS: And what do you think about that?

DR. INFANTE: I think it's unfortunate that steps that can be done to reduce exposure and disease in the work place often do not get done. There are some companies that are very good at esponding and there are many others that are not, and I think this is a sad example.

MOYERS: Is this behavior on the part of the chemical industry toward benzene unique to benzene, or does it happen in regard to other chemicals?

DR. INFANTE: It happens with regard to many chemicals.

MOYERS: About 10 or 12 years ago the record shows the CMA began to developing volunteer testing as an alternative to regulation, as a means to avoid regulation. Does that make you sleep better at night?

DR. INFANTE: Well, that depends on what they do with the study results. If they implement the knowledge, then I would sleep better at night. If the knowledge isn't implemented to protect workers from toxic exposures on the job, then I'll sleep worse at night. It depends on what you do with the knowledge. You can do lots of studies. If you don't implement that knowledge, then you've done nothing to help workers. You've done nothing for society.

I've heard civilization defined as striving for the acquisition of knowledge. But I think also that one could define civilization as the application of knowledge, and that is what does not take place in the occupational setting.

We do studies. We find hazards. Then it's decades before we implement that knowledge of the toxicity to protect workers from disease and death on the job.