eric frumin remembers the arguments.ell, there were forces within the carter administration, particularly the economists, who thought that the money spent to protect workers' health was, in a sense, not worth it. and if workers could just be forced to wear these intolerable dust masks-- which don't look that uncomfortable, especially if you never wore one all day-- then we'd be saving everybody money. somehow that would be to society's benefit. that view, fortunately, didn't prevail. the textile industry sued o.s.h.a., arguing that the new regulations would impose a relatively high cost to protect a relatively small number of lives. they argued that eliminating the disease risk would destroy the industry's ability to survive overseas competition, that the most effective dollars had been spent. you do get considerable more out of the first dollar you spend rather than the millionth or the last dollar you spend because usually improvement is achieved very early in making progress toward reaching a standard. you lower your