Documents Infante, Peter F. 4 results

"Barry Castleman recently documented the story of Dr. Alice Hamilton's encounter in the 1940s and 1950s with the FBI as she fought for social justice and her pioneering work in occupational safety and health. Her encounter with the FBI may give many of us working to protect the public's health an uncomfortable feeling. Political intimidation by government political appointees, however, did not end 80 years ago. Within federal agencies, there is a continuous battle between political appointees and career civil servants over the scientific justification for the promulgation and enforcement of health and safety standards. Most of these struggles are rarely recognized outside the agencies. However, they have a negative impact on public health as well as morale within agencies. Corporations and business lobbies have used every political means to delay, weaken, and block the issuance of health standards since worker, consumer, and environmental protection agencies were created in the early 1970s. ..."

"The cohort study of Pliofilm workers exposed to benzene has been used as a primary data source to estimate quantitative dose response for benzene-leukemia. Little attention has focused on the undercounting of leukemia deaths used in the analyses, nor on the behavior of the company toward the Pliofilm workers who contracted leukemia. An historical review of documents related to the Akron portion of the cohort indicates that between two and five workers diagnosed with acute myelogenous leukemia (AML) could be added to the cohort for alternate dose response analyses. In the late 1950s and early 1960s, the company did not inform Pliofilm workers with AML that they had the disease, concealed from the workers, including those diagnosed with AML, and the treating hematologist that benzene was the solvent being used, and denied compensation for AML cases exposed to benzene until forced to do so by the State of Ohio in 1968."

"Case reports and epidemiological studies of workers exposed to benzene have demonstrated associations with a number of lymphohematopoietic diseases, but the association with multiple myeloma (MM) has been less apparent. Data from all of the "benzene cohort studies" conducted to date have been selected and evaluated for inclusion in a meta-analysis. The analysis demonstrates a significant excess in the relative risk (RR) of MM in relation to benzene exposure. Pooling the data from seven cohort studies, a meta-analysis yields a statistically significant weighted RR estimate of 2.13 (95% CI = 1.31–3.46). In the analysis of cohort data, an understanding of the cohort follow-up period in relation to benzene exposure and RR of MM is important. Exposure-related RRs of disease decline after the median latency periods are exceeded, particularly when exposure has terminated decades earlier. The positive epidemiological evidence for benzene as a cause of MM is supported by biological plausibility for such an effect from benzene exposure. Studies of refinery workers are difficult to interpret in relation to benzene exposure and risk of MM, but are limited in the study design and analysis. Nonetheless, they provide some support for an association between refinery work and MM."