Getting the word out

This past week or so, one of my co-workers has spread the word about the possible toxin exposure at where I worked.  During that time, more people have come forward and shared their own experiences.  Just yesterday, found another woman that worked there for one year that has cancer.  Others are going to their doctors.  What scares me the most, the leadership I contact at my work still do not see the "proof."  I wonder how many people must die before we no longer look for proof before we act.  I wonder when we start saying...hmm... something is going on here. (common scents?)  Maybe we should be safe first and pull the workers until we can find out what is going on here.  But everyone still works.  They found out there is a lead exposure problem about 18 months ago and just put out a bid for a clean up this week.    Doesn't feel like a rush to save lives.   I think it is entirely possible that everyone in the building could die at one time and without "proof" they would put in more workers.  Proof might never be found, but when do we just look at a problem and solve it.
  When I was in Iraq, one of our jobs was to monitor the number of linguists supporting the operations.  We had several ways of doing this.  One break down was by camp and we noticed that one camp had a very upsetting trend in the number of linguist deaths.  Most camps had one to four deaths among the linguists working with them.  But one camp was way over 50.  We realized that the insurgents were targeting the linguists in particular.  I remember talking on the phone with the camp commander and pointing out that he had to protect these linguists.  He said these deaths did not happen during duty hours.  These folks died when they went back to their home at night.  He didn't feel like he had a responsibility for contractors after they left the camp.  I told him to keep them in his camp and try to protect them.  He told me I didn't have proof that they were being targeted.  Later, a female captain I talked to recognized the problem and took on the responsibilty herself.  She ended up convincing the leadership to move all the linguists onto the camp and then started targeting the insurgents that were doing this.
  I wonder when I will find that kind of captain in my own organization.  I worry more will die and suffer and never find the smoking gun.  But they could have been saved if we acted a few years ago when the suspicions were first brought up.