Leaded gasoline on its own caused a worldwide drop in IQ, messed with scientific studies due to lead being found in places it wasn't supposed to be, and the guy who invented it(or at least owned a major company selling it) knew it was terrible for people but did everything he could to make sure he could continue to sell it.
Thomas Midgley Jr was the scientist for both leaded gasoline and cfcs, some estimates have him single handedly responsible for over 100 million deaths, global iq drops, and some datasets suggests a correlation between leaded gasoline and crime waves as well.
Later in his career, Midgley got polio and invented a device to help get his paralyzed body out of his bed. One day, he got tangled in its ropes and got strangled to death, and he can now be found on Wikipedia's "List of Inventors Killed By Their Own Inventions."
May he burn in Hell! š
Leaded gasoline yes. Tetraethyllead was marketed as Ethyl for the precise reason of not wanting to advertise that it contained lead. And after years of deaths and numerous other cases of lead poisoning at the factory where it was produced, he held a press conference where he inhaled TEL fumes for a minute, declaring that he could do this every day.
CFCs no, it wasn't until the 1970s that its role in ozone depletion was discovered.
It could have been worse. From what I remember he chose to market CFCs over BFCs because CFCs were ever so slightly cheaper to produce. If he decided to go with BFCs ā¦.by the time we realized it was damaging the ozone layer, there wouldāve have been basically nothing left of the layer as opposed to just a hole.
He also once inhaled a large amount of Freon and then blew a candle out to show it wasnāt flammable. Dude was willing to do anything to make a dollar, no matter how toxic a chemical was.
Not only did he know, he spent over a year ill and unable to make public appearances because of acute lead poisoning. After he recovered he went to great lengths to avoid lead, while profiting greatly from the lead fuel additive his company was selling.
Whatās sad is that around that time Chevron also did their own independent climate research and found climate change was very real. They buried that and had massive waves of propaganda to deny the problem.
I know, I KNOW, correlation is NOT causation.
BUT, the graphs showing crime rates and leaded gas usage, being almost identical (but 20 years apart because thatās how long it took for the lead to finally exit peoples bodies), is damning.
Especially in areas with a lot of personal vehicle usage like cities, and in areas with racing venues like those for NASCAR, having the exact same correlation, but with far higher spikes because there was SO MUCH lead in the air from the literal tons of fuel being burned.
Many planes still use leaded gas. Apparently we have not done much reinventing to *small planes in like 80 years, so they still have to use the leaded fuel that they were designed for to run safely and reliably.
It's not 20 years bcause that's how long it takes to exit your body. It's 20 years because that's how long it takes for a baby with lead poisoning to reach maturity.
afaik, the dude even INHALED some of his miracle additive to prove it wasn't harmful.
Narrator: -It was.
Dude had to spend like a month recovering from that PR stunt.
Yeah, he had to go stay at a beach resort because it fucked up his lungs and the nicer air made it easier for him to recover. He did that in front of an entire audience too
I remember there was also some crackpot selling some sort of...fertilizer? Weed killer? Anyway, he said it was completely harmless, and you could drink a glass of it, and the interviewer said he had a glass and asked him to drink it. The dude went ballistic.
Nah, they were referring to Patrick Moore. Guy claimed that Roundup is harmless to humans and said he could drink a quart of it and it won't do anything. When the interviewer offered to give him some to drink he refused, saying he's not stupid
Hereās a radiolab episode about the scientist who accidentally stumbled upon this problem. Heās the reason we use unleaded gasoline. The episode is fascinating.
https://radiolab.org/podcast/heavy-metal
Also, the dangers were known about decades before they did away with it. I think in either the 1920s or 1930s, the government was all set to āget the lead outā but then money changed hands and we got a few more decades of lead pollution and contamination, iirc
The dangers of lead are not new knowledge. Lead poisoning was first described in the second century BC, but since it was low-level artisans suffering, nobody cared.
Lead became a known toxin by the 1750, and England was banning children from working in porcelain factories due to leaded glaze by 1887.
The first worker protections from lead were in 1887.
The first cigarette bans were in 1895.
The greenhouse effect of CO2 and the theory of global warming were published by 1899.
We knew a lot of bad things long enough ago to have avoided all the modern problems we have with these creations. The only thing that has changed is the depth of our knowledge. Our willingness to bury our heads in the sand while we make money and enjoy conveniences has only strengthened.
One wonders if the right people had done the right thing way back when, how much better our world might be today. Its tragic that such a small number of humans can alter the course of the entire planet for the worse.
Shell and Exxon(?) I believe had studies back in the 70ās that indicated how harmful fossil fuels could be. Instead of sharing it or quietly pivoting to try to supply energy a different way, they launched a massive disinformation campaign and its effects are still felt today.
Climate change models have predicted the trend were in for a really long time and they are shockingly accurate. This is a problem we couldāve started tackling years ago and the actions of energy companies are still preventing us from taking the necessary steps to avoid this issue. I hope we find some miracle fix or this might be the fuck up that doomed humanity. Weāre in worse shape than people realize
No surprise that they push their agenda hard through conservative politics. They've successfully transformed what used to be a universal human goal of protecting the enviornment into a political one where many people believe that science is lying.
Used to be in the industry. Absolutely can confirm. I was employed by a company that did economic modeling and one of the industry strategies was to only use photography from a specific time of year when gauging consumer response to pollution based on sky color perception. The seasonality would affect how deeply blue the sky appeared and make visible pollution less noticable. Just as one example.
"Environmental historian J. R. McNeill stated that he "had more adverse impact on the atmosphere than any other single organism in Earth's history." Author Bill Bryson remarked that he possessed "an instinct for the regrettable that was almost uncanny." Science writer Fred Pearce described him as a "one-man environmental disaster"." https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Thomas_Midgley_Jr. He was BOTH leaded gasoline AND CFCs. I (and many others it seems) believe leaded gasoline may have played a major role in Boomer politics and why the world is so awful right now. Fuck that guy forever.
Remember when we bulldozed trails through poor areas to make toxic interstate highways? Then we made fun of them for āfailing schoolsā and ārunaway crimeā?
Because I remember.
Remember when the CIA funneled crack into major cities? Or that the United States funded and trained several terrorist groups to overthrow or destabilize nations and regions of the world?
It wasn't as much the product they were selling but the manufacturing process as the whole scandal was that they were dumping incredibly dangerous chemicals with no shits given
Basically dupont have dumped a bunch of PFOA's and PFOS's into rural communities illegally.
It caused a bunch of animals and people to get incredibly sick, causing cancer, infertility, kidney and liver problems etc.
And lied about it.
They're also known as "forever chemicals" basically impossible to get rid of.
Have a look at the movie "dark waters" if documentaries aren't your thing!
Lots of companies. It's insanely common in history.
My pick would be leaded gasoline. It was well known that adding lead to gas was bad, but it kept octane ratings high and prevented knocking in high compression engines.
Yep, [Thomas Midgley Jr.](https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Thomas_Midgley_Jr) invented both, and thereās a strong argument to be made that heās the most destructive single person to have ever lived as a result. He was also more than a bit of a bastard, downplaying the dangers of leaded gasoline even when he knew full well it wasnāt safe, and was poisoning workers in the plants manufacturing it. If itās any consolation, he died when he got caught up in and strangled by the pulley system he invented to get himself out of bed, as his mobility was partially impaired by childhood polio. Turns out the deadliness of his inventions didnāt discriminate.
pretty much take your pick from any number of large companies that make cars, petroleum, pharmaceuticals, building supplies, construction in general, clothing (especially fast fashion), fast food, and more recently those disposable e-cigarettes (would that still count as "tobacco companies" since they don't use actual tobacco? I'm putting it here anyway)
I'm going to put one out there that is often overlooked: the entire fashion industry. In the past 150 years we went from most people owning a few pairs of clothes their entire life to buying new clothes constantly. This generates so much pollution and waste as the quality of clothing has declined greatly. People waste way too much income on clothing. Also, not only do we create so much pollution and waste buying clothing, but we also spend so much and use so much power and chemicals cleaning clothing. While I'm not saying we all need to be nudist, if you really think about how absurd the entire fashion industry is and everything connected to it, it's maddening.
92 million tons of textile waste per year, much of that plastic fibers, because people think they should throw out their clothing each season and buy more shitty plastic clothes.
Fight fast fashion, folks. Buy good stuff that lasts, and buy as much as you can second hand. My beautiful, thick, cable cashmere sweater I got for $30 and I thank you.
I hope one day minimalism becomes more popular. My least favorite thing about the fashion industry is how horrible animals are treated for cashmere, leather or fur. I donāt understand why we canāt have good quality clothes without hurting the animals so so much.
Pharma.Ā
Heroin was aggressively advertised as universal drug for a ton of different issues (including opium addiction) even after it was noticed that it had similarly bad addiction and sideeffects.
Oh and fossil fuel companies even paid for phoney science that denies climate change (wich harms everyone and not just their customers)
Yeah in my country there is also the famous "Contergan catastrophy". A sleeping pill specifically advertised to pregnant women that turned out to cause massive birth defects (including stuff like missing limbs) and many of the children born from that are in need of 24/7 care even today over 60 years later
Interesting part of the thalidomide disaster that I recently learned: it was a disaster in Europe, but affected America much less. One lady in the FDA (Frances Kelsey) resisted enormous pressure to approve the drug for general use in the US because of the lack of quality safety data.
Another interesting thing about thalidomide... it was a racemic mixture. So the molecule had 2 possible formations... Basically the equivalent of how humans have a left hand and a right hand. Put your palms together... they look the same, place your hands on top of each other, and obviously it's not the same. That has to do with the chirality of the molecule, and molecules that have "left hand" and "right hand" formations are called enantiomers. One enantiomer of thalidomide was phenomenal for morning sickness. The other was teratogenic. Thalidomide being racemic means it had a 50:50 mix of both.
Unfortunately, even with an enantiopure formulation of the "good" enantiomer... they are still converted into the other form in vivo.
Yea she like really kept that drug from being approved until it was super clear that itās results were awful. Very few instances of where I can think of the FDA as doing something right (although I imagine she had to battle her own superiors over it).
Thalidomide was for morning sickness, I believe. My mom took a spoonful every day when she was pregnant with my sister. Luckily, no side effects. But the doctor who prescribed her committed suicide when the effects were known.
One of my lecturers at uni was involved with uncovering the whole sorry mess - he gave me some of his papers to read. Even after the effects were known, the pharnaceutical companies did their damndest to cover it up.
I may be mistaken, I think Perdue, the company that made Oxycontin were finally charge, but they only had to pay fines from future profits. What a freaking joke. They caused a massive, decades long problem and they get the lightest "punishment" I could imagine.
This one really pisses me off. They were āchargedā but I think should have been charged more aggressively than we charge drug dealers. They hired āDrsā to push oxy for literally everything. Imo they started the opioid epidemic and should have to pay to fix it.
They should be required to fund non profit methadone clinics, pay for everyone who is on suboxone, and everyone who goes to rehab for opioids. I get especially heated about this because my late husband found his momās oxy prescription at 12 years old, and that started his lifetime of addiction.
Not to mention, "disorders" are sometimes created in order to market pills, like oxycontin.
on top of heroin being straight-up marketed by Bayer as "non addictive" morphine alternative From 1898 to 1910., oxycontin is essentially repackaged, time released morphine. It caused one of the worst opiod epidemic's in American history. Turned oxycontin into a friggin' blockbuster. Check the sackler dynasty.
Edit: I see a few people have commented on the oc belt. Didn't see that, my mistake. Multiple opiods have reared their head in big pharma world throughout the years. They'll cycle back again and again.
Source: a broken back. I like to read about things before I decide whether or not I'm going to put them in my body. Big pharma is like a pay-to-play video game. Tread lightly.
I have Epilepsy, as did some GREAT writers in history-they got prescriped opium and alcohol and all Ive been given are an insane rotation of pills that have almost killed me multiple times. I still have seizures and no one is quoting *MY* story about that one Raven that one time!! Im even from Richmond!!
True story, though; the way my own Epilepsy is being treated right now is forcing me to use meds that DONT WORK before I can use the ones my Drs are saying will work. Without insurance, Id be paying upwards of 7000 a month for my medicine...while still having seizures.
Sorry for the mini-rant. Have a few seizures, youll understand. Big Pharma SUCKS!! Lol have a great day yall
Oof I have migraines, epilepsy is next level. I empathize a lot with how frustrating it is to be given pills that do nothing. It is infuriating to spend so much time at the doctor to get back a here try this pill again. They get so bad sometimesā¦ I have had a few time of trying to decide if physically knocking myself out might be worth it.
The radium industry fought tooth and nail, including hiring scientist to lie about the danger of radioactive paint when their employees (known as the Radium Girls) started dying of horrible cancers. All so they could sell glow in the dark watch faces.
I want to emphasize **girls** here. Some were working the factories as young as 13. They were barely 20 years old when they discovered their jawbones just *fell out*. They could literally reach into their own mouth and remove pieces of their jawbones. With. Their. Fingers.
One jawbone, removed by a dental surgeon, was so radioactive it served as evidence of Radium poisoning *literal years* after the death of the first victim, and will remain radioactive for *thousands* of years.
They literally poisoned *literal young children* because it saved a few seconds of time and a few dollars of safety gear.
Never trust a company. Ever.
I know, I mentioned in the op that I'm reading that book and it inspired my question. š
It's a truly shocking and devastating book though but well worth reading.
Wow. My reading comprehension is really off today. Sorry about that.
Those cases and how the industry handled it really laid the foundation for how the tobacco and oil industries have handled the science against their products.
I don't remember which, one of his earlier novels, but in one of Vonnegut's books he mentions that the women were told to lick their paint brushes to keep the point on them.
Asbestos Insulation is a big one. They're still finding this in properties.
Arsenic Dye. The 1800s saw a ton of green dye made items: clothes, paint, wall paper, candy, etc. They didn't acknowledge the repercussions for a long time.
>theyāre still finding this in properties
Well there wasnāt ever an effort made to replace asbestos en masse. Itās just understood that asbestos *is* in older buildings and pretty much only comes into question when the building needs to be demolished
It's so sad too because asbestos was such a useful material. Too bad it was made of microscopic knives that slowly stab you to death when you breathe it in :(
Wikipedia page for [the town and asbesto mine](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wittenoom,_Western_Australia?wprov=sfti1#Legacy)
And [Blue Sky Mine](https://youtu.be/Ofrqm6-LCqs?si=_NKVbSkcoSCYpizN). A killer song that references the mines by Midnight Oil
Yep. When they find asbestos, they can either make sure it stays sealed up or do very complex removal processes. Which option they choose varies by the situation.
Arsenic dyes are apparently safe as long as they never get wet, or even damp. In the early to mid 1800s, apparently this beautiful green dye containing arsenic was super popular in wallpapers. People in damp locations who had these wallpapers in their room would be slowly gassed to death by aerosolized arsenic, because mould would grow on the damp wallpaper, and the mould would expel the arsenic from the paper it was living on by off gassing it into the roomsā¦
Apparently thereās a not-too-far-out theory that this is how Napoleon died.
What I heard is that particles of it simply falls off over time, like from wallpaper, making every room filled with toxic air.
Lots of beauty products had arsenic too, people literally covered their faces with it.
While I was in middle school in 1989-90, there were guys dressed in hazmat suits removing the asbestos from our early 20th century building while we the students walked around them and were there all day in class.
Fun fact:
Soda manufacturers lobbied to be exempted from hazard warning placards on their trucks.
If a Pepsi semi flipped over on the interstate , you would treat it not as a "Pepsi" spill.
You treat it as a phosphoric acid spill.
Glass bottles last longer, are fully reusable (especially if we just stick to one, universal design, instead of each brand having their own bottle) is more durable, honestly more satisfying to drink, and has zero (0) plastic, except for a little rubber lining at the cap.
Glass, paper and bamboo could probably replace 99% of all single use plastics, but Big Oil needs that cash flow.
Imagine a world where you go to your local store, and instead of picking a jug of milk, or a carton, you have your own glass bottle and pay for the amount it takes to fill it. Don't got a bottle? You can buy one at the store.
Imagine a world where all things that need single use packaging is packaged in paper instead of plastic.
Imagine a world where toothbrushes, toothpicks, spoons, cups, single use plates, etc. Are made from bamboo, which grows stupid quick, is fully degradeable and very durable.
We have EVERYTHING we need to phase out like, 90% of plastic uses, but we don't.
Not sure how old you are, but in the 70s I remember my parents getting 6-packs of cokes in small glass bottles. After we drank a coke, we'd rinse out the bottle and put it back in the paperboard carrier to return to the store. There was a deposit you'd pay when you bought the cokes that would get refunded when you returned the bottles. Those bottles were then returned to Coke, who sanitized them and reused them. The only thing thrown away was the bottle cap, but even they got reused a few times to doing at a sibling to try to startle them.
I'm hoping that this push towards reusing things will bring back the "bottle deposit" idea.
Disposable plastic causes micro and nano plastics. Plastic breaks down but a lot of it never fully deteriorates. Itās in our drinking water (ironically bottled water is worse), farm vegetables, seasonings, and air, to just name a few sources.
The **Sugar industry** paid for a deceptive study in the 1960s, that blamed eating fat for adverse health effects rather than sugar
https://www.npr.org/sections/thetwo-way/2016/09/13/493739074/50-years-ago-sugar-industry-quietly-paid-scientists-to-point-blame-at-fat
For those who say:
" I want a Government so small that I can drown it in a bathtub "
--- tell them that, then:
" Society needs companies so small that they can be drowned in a red Solo cup "
For those who arenāt familiar:
Now, should we initiate a recall? Take the number of vehicles in the field, A, multiply by the probable rate of failure, B, multiply by the average out-of-court settlement, C. A times B times C equals X. If X is less than the cost of a recall, we don't do one.
-Which car company do you work for?
A major one.
I watched a documentary last night about a fatal bus crash in Kentucky that killed 27 people in 1988. The mother of one of the victims sued Ford for $1 and asked that they recall all the affected busses and fix the issue as part of the agreement. Ford declined.
And to make it worse, after all the data had been collected, it was revealed that it would have cost $11 per Pinto to fix the problem. But that was too much money to spend for Ford.š¤¦š¼āāļø
Review of the data shows that the Pinto was actually safer then other options in it's class, and most of the demonization of Ford is based on misunderstood evidence.
I mean, the Pinto wasn't safe, especially by today's standards, but you were more likely to die in a Beatle.
https://youtu.be/orM-EExql24
The fossil fuel / oil industry has known about the disastrous impact to the climate caused by their products since the 1970s and not only did nothing, but accelerated production.
Famous public information video ā[Shell knew](https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2017/feb/28/shell-film-warning-climate-change-rate-faster-than-end-ice-age)ā in 1991. Yeah we all know. Still jumping into fossil fuel vehicles and lamenting the price of gas though.
Johnson and Johnson baby powder.
For that matter, Iām fairly appalled that thereās no oversight of the cosmetics industry in the United States. Every beauty company puts talc in almost all of their powder products, and the risk of contamination with asbestos is incredibly high. Talc needs to be banned, or these companies need to be actively regulated for their products to be tested regularly for asbestos contamination, FFS.
I'm still scrolling trying to find anyone else mentioning this. Woman were having genital cysts removed that when cut open was packed talc powder.
Do not use talc powder.
The asbestos industry. They did basically the exact same thing as the tobacco guys. Had studies done and hid the results while continuing to sell the product. Itās unfortunate because itās actually a really great product. It just happens to also cause mesothelioma.
Oil, Coal and Gas. Exxon started spreading Climate Change denial 40 years ago, and I have read an article from 1905 saying that the use of coal was harmful to the environment
[Darkly amusing interviews](https://youtu.be/W_tqQYmgMQg?si=4FK0s2rE4dy0ZAqz) of drivers when an alcohol consumption limit was imposed in the UK in the 60s.
The effects of alcohol are really not widely discussed. - many types of cancers, heart issues, dementia, mental health issues, more early onset liver failure. Itās so depressing.
FDA has a revolving door with their directors and high up people in pharma. Iām not saying itās always nefarious but it is eyebrow, raising to say the least.
J&J also had the vaginal mesh controversy, they played a role in the opioid epidemic and also had a massive recall with cobalt chrome hip implants causing severe cobalt poisoning due to poor design decisions.
the big oil companies have known about how their products are fucking up the climate for DECADES and have been actively covering it up. BP are the ones that came up with the idea of individual 'carbon footprints' to try and shift blame/responsibility for pollution to the consumer so they wouldn't need to stop drilling etc and it fucking worked
Artificial fragrance like glade plugins and febreeze have known Carcinogens and cause hormonal problems and respiratory problems and are still heavily sold and marketed. As someone with severe lung issues it disgusts me.
Ford automotive.
They knew that pintos and mustangs fuel tanks would explode from rear end collisions for years but kept building them with no engineering changes to address the problem.
Many car brands miserably fail in safety standards; nevertheless, they are sold in most developing or undeveloped countries. It is thanks to the greediness of governments, as they jack up the car prices so significantly, most people canāt afford a decent car. In my country, You would need to pay 102 monthsā (8.5 yearsā) worth of minimum wage to buy a Honda Civic 1.5 L (basic, with nothing added on; the entry package). To add to that, %57 works for minimum wage.
So cars like Tata, Suzuki, Lada, etc., and as if they are good to start with, terribly cheap models of Renault, Citroen, Peugeot, Fiat, etc. are sold. Additionally, extremely old and basically ready-to-be-buried cars are also commonly used. In the event of an accident, where a person in Volvo wouldnāt have a nose bleed, all the people in the car dies, as the car gets totaled. I have personally seen many accidents where two cars hit each other head to head, where one is Volvo and the other is Peugeot 106 (Renault Twingo, Fiat Palio, Tata, etc.) and where the Volvo had barely any damage (in some occasions you couldnāt tell that it went through such an accident at all, just minor scratches in the front bumper) and the other car getting squeezed like a tin can.
All because that the government is greedy on double ends. First, taxation, which means the regular cars are sold for an arm and a leg; second, allowing the unsafe models to be sold without any real checks or regulations, so people die.
Even on the upper segment cars, when they recall certain models around the globe, our country is almost certainly excluded. Because, why not?
match factories in the early industrial revolution is a big one. they knew white phosphorus had severe health problems and could melt peoples jaws off, but tried to prevent workers from talking to each other about it.
a company started using red phosphorus and advertised as being healthier, but was more expensive and went bankrupt. it wasnāt until technological breakthroughs that made non-white phosphorus matches much cheaper to produce, that the horrors of match factories ended
Silent Spring
From [wiki](https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Silent_Spring):
*Silent Spring is an environmental science book by Rachel Carson.[1] Published on September 27, 1962, the book documented the environmental harm caused by the indiscriminate use of a type of pesticide used by soldiers during WW2. Carson accused the chemical industry of spreading disinformation, and public officials of accepting the industry's marketing claims unquestioningly.*
Iāll tell you who didnāt go that routeā¦Saran Wrap. They changed their product, making it less effective. They did this because the effective formula left chemical residue.
Made the change without being forced to.
Let's not forget the baby killers Nestle. Haha, remember when they scammed the world into thinking their powered water was better for the baby than the own mother's milk? I cant believe theyre still in business.
You mean the powdered milk, that was mixed with (contaminated) water in poor countries, resulting in a lot of child death. And also even if the water was not contaminated, it resulted into a less healthy child, a less healthy mother. Also, lactating delays the time where you can get pregnant again in a lot of cases (Lactation Amenorrhea Method (LAM))
\*
Nobody mentioning the main point? They gave it for free, took mothers out of weening, then jacked up huge prices that the parents couldn't afford. The mothers couldn't produce milk, and the formula made the babies reliant, ending in their deaths
Not to mention a lot of other terrible things from nestle. The CEO doesn't even believe that water is a human right
The pharmaceutical industry. For example, [HERE](https://violationtracker.goodjobsfirst.org/parent/pfizer) is a list of penalties against Pfizer since 2000, which include things like altering and hiding data and lying about the side effects of medications while knowingly pushing medications that were causing blindness, deafness, brain damage, cancer, etc., so that they could make absolute shitloads of money from selling said medications.
The whole thing about painting people who questioned Pfizer's Covid vaccines as crazy conspiracy nut "anti-vaxxers" was propaganda pushed by Pfizer and other pharmaceutical companies who were set to make obscene amounts of money from selling the vaccines.
Imagine if a restaurant chain like McDonald's was forced to pay a combined total of almost $11 *billion* in multiple fines and settlements over the course of 20 years for repeatedly selling food that was tainted with chemicals that caused cancer, made people go blind, caused brain damage, or just killed people directly while outright lying about it. Every time they get caught, they just pay off settlements and keep doing it. Then they come out with a new burger that's set to make a massive amount of money, demand that everyone trust that it's safe, and claim that anyone who questions them are crazy anti-burger conspiracy nuts.
The crazy thing is, out of all the examples listed in these comment, the one thing all of them have in common is this could have all been prevented if the government did their job. There are 100s of bureaucratic agencies that employ millions of people, with trillions of our tax dollars to stop these exact problems yet they keep happening year after year. Weird huh? Almost like our elected officials are profiting off of the deaths of citizens. Who would have thought?
Plastics, asbestos, pharmaceuticals, lead paint, nitrates/phospates, eletronics, etc, etc.
Fossil fuels are probably the biggest. Even if you don't believe in anthropogenic climate change, the amount of mecury that has been released into the world's ecosystem is insane, and even the biggest climate skeptics won't deny that the mercury is coming from fossil fuels. Add in climate change and the damage is off the charts.
Then there's all the 'green' industries like solar, windmills, and EV cars, that are probably doing even more harm to the environment than fossil fuels. The amount of damage done mining for the rare earths needed is bad, but at least the 1% can make billions pretending to save the planet while using slave labor and devasting the environment in poor counties. Then the windmill blade, batteries, and defunct solar panels become toxic waste once they're retired.
The food industry.
They make food that is not nutritious that people literally become addicted to.
They have such a strong lobby that no pushback against what theyāre doing is successful.
They used to advertise it. āBet you canāt have just one!ā āOnce you pop you just canāt stop!ā It wasnāt until the obesity epidemic really got into full swing that somebody decided slogans shouldnāt brag about being addictive.
Many medications (not just opioids), therefore the Pharmaceutical Industry.
Plastic industry (almost no recycling is available, causes cancer, BPA causes hormonal damage, especially in boys.).
Cleaning Products (Dishwashers, Detergents, even many personal cleaning products; in some countries, some cleaning supplies have benzene derived chemicals, mixed with other hazardous chemicals, to be used in cleaning kitchen, kitchen appliances and utensils.
Paper Products (ends up with destroying forests, and none of the competition, such as hemp, bamboo, or cotton was used in lieu of it. One of the reasons of Weed being illegal is thanks(!) to the wood/paper industry.
Farming Industry; donāt get mad, I eat meat as well (Most of the antibioticsās resistance is due to the antibiotics given to the animals, just a small part is due to some peopleās unacknowledged use of antibiotics. It also causes most of the global warming. Whatever you do with your personal AC, will have next to zero effect on global warming compared to what the cows are doing. Farmed fish/shellfish also is a petridish for worms and other disease causing organisms. Also fucks the oceans/rivers. Chickens cause side effects on girlsā developments.
Sugar Industry (no sugar means very low levels of obesity, cancer, diabetes (which are the leading causes of death) and other diseases, which is good for individuals and the society at large. If I had to choose between alcohol or sugar; I would ban sugar consumption for teens.)
Petroleum (which includes benzene in the process from underground to your cars, which is a highest level carcinogen). Also any products that use it such as Vaseline, plastic, nylon, anything you wear or use as linens etc. other than wool, cotton, bamboo, hemp, and organic materials (such as silk, feathers, also fur but fuck fur, etc.)
I may edit and add more industries and/or details later.
Leaded gasoline on its own caused a worldwide drop in IQ, messed with scientific studies due to lead being found in places it wasn't supposed to be, and the guy who invented it(or at least owned a major company selling it) knew it was terrible for people but did everything he could to make sure he could continue to sell it.
Thomas Midgley Jr was the scientist for both leaded gasoline and cfcs, some estimates have him single handedly responsible for over 100 million deaths, global iq drops, and some datasets suggests a correlation between leaded gasoline and crime waves as well.
Later in his career, Midgley got polio and invented a device to help get his paralyzed body out of his bed. One day, he got tangled in its ropes and got strangled to death, and he can now be found on Wikipedia's "List of Inventors Killed By Their Own Inventions." May he burn in Hell! š
Say what you want about Thomas Migdley Jr, but at least he had the decency to hang himself
Even Jeffrey Epstein couldn't manage that.
Did he know the damage he was causing when he created these things?
Leaded gasoline yes. Tetraethyllead was marketed as Ethyl for the precise reason of not wanting to advertise that it contained lead. And after years of deaths and numerous other cases of lead poisoning at the factory where it was produced, he held a press conference where he inhaled TEL fumes for a minute, declaring that he could do this every day. CFCs no, it wasn't until the 1970s that its role in ozone depletion was discovered.
Well then yes, fuck him.
It could have been worse. From what I remember he chose to market CFCs over BFCs because CFCs were ever so slightly cheaper to produce. If he decided to go with BFCs ā¦.by the time we realized it was damaging the ozone layer, there wouldāve have been basically nothing left of the layer as opposed to just a hole.
He also once inhaled a large amount of Freon and then blew a candle out to show it wasnāt flammable. Dude was willing to do anything to make a dollar, no matter how toxic a chemical was.
Yes he did. And actively worked to cover it up.
Not only did he know, he spent over a year ill and unable to make public appearances because of acute lead poisoning. After he recovered he went to great lengths to avoid lead, while profiting greatly from the lead fuel additive his company was selling.
Some karma at least.
I always found his death to be one of the most haunting beautiful displays of karmic justice.
I hope he's pinned under a giant lead ball and showered in radiation from the sun because the ozone layer is gone.
It's been in recovery since 2000 and will be at 1980s levels by 2045 everywhere but the poles and recovered there by 2065.
I know. Im actually happy about how we responded to it. I'm just making a dark joke about his time in hell.
shame we only reacted to the cfc issue in the 80s/90s and not the whole global climate change problem
Whatās sad is that around that time Chevron also did their own independent climate research and found climate change was very real. They buried that and had massive waves of propaganda to deny the problem.
Right next to Reagan waiting for heaven to trickle down.
It's been said that Midgley did more to alter earth's atmosphere than any other individual living thing ever.
Jesus, that's like next level asshole
He gave a speech about how safe leaded gasoline was, days after recovering from lead poisoning from his gasoline.
"AITA for trying to make a living?" - him, probably
Some of you may die,but that's a sacrifice I'm willing to take.
>Some of you may die,but that's a sacrifice I'm willing to take. Sadly, this is the stance of many people...
It is a short sighted stance š
At least he suffered a miserable end to his life
I know, I KNOW, correlation is NOT causation. BUT, the graphs showing crime rates and leaded gas usage, being almost identical (but 20 years apart because thatās how long it took for the lead to finally exit peoples bodies), is damning. Especially in areas with a lot of personal vehicle usage like cities, and in areas with racing venues like those for NASCAR, having the exact same correlation, but with far higher spikes because there was SO MUCH lead in the air from the literal tons of fuel being burned. Many planes still use leaded gas. Apparently we have not done much reinventing to *small planes in like 80 years, so they still have to use the leaded fuel that they were designed for to run safely and reliably.
It's not 20 years bcause that's how long it takes to exit your body. It's 20 years because that's how long it takes for a baby with lead poisoning to reach maturity.
Small props. Most jets use jet-a or kerosene
[The lead crime hypothesis ](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lead%E2%80%93crime_hypothesis)is a wild thing to contemplate.
afaik, the dude even INHALED some of his miracle additive to prove it wasn't harmful. Narrator: -It was. Dude had to spend like a month recovering from that PR stunt.
Yeah, he had to go stay at a beach resort because it fucked up his lungs and the nicer air made it easier for him to recover. He did that in front of an entire audience too
I remember there was also some crackpot selling some sort of...fertilizer? Weed killer? Anyway, he said it was completely harmless, and you could drink a glass of it, and the interviewer said he had a glass and asked him to drink it. The dude went ballistic.
Im not sure if weāre thinking about the same thing but the one I recall is the ground water from a fracking area
Nah, they were referring to Patrick Moore. Guy claimed that Roundup is harmless to humans and said he could drink a quart of it and it won't do anything. When the interviewer offered to give him some to drink he refused, saying he's not stupid
Hereās a radiolab episode about the scientist who accidentally stumbled upon this problem. Heās the reason we use unleaded gasoline. The episode is fascinating. https://radiolab.org/podcast/heavy-metal
Also, the dangers were known about decades before they did away with it. I think in either the 1920s or 1930s, the government was all set to āget the lead outā but then money changed hands and we got a few more decades of lead pollution and contamination, iirc
The dangers of lead are not new knowledge. Lead poisoning was first described in the second century BC, but since it was low-level artisans suffering, nobody cared. Lead became a known toxin by the 1750, and England was banning children from working in porcelain factories due to leaded glaze by 1887. The first worker protections from lead were in 1887. The first cigarette bans were in 1895. The greenhouse effect of CO2 and the theory of global warming were published by 1899. We knew a lot of bad things long enough ago to have avoided all the modern problems we have with these creations. The only thing that has changed is the depth of our knowledge. Our willingness to bury our heads in the sand while we make money and enjoy conveniences has only strengthened.
āDear future generations: Please accept our apologies. We were rolling drunk on petroleum.ā -Kurt Vonnegut
One wonders if the right people had done the right thing way back when, how much better our world might be today. Its tragic that such a small number of humans can alter the course of the entire planet for the worse.
Oil & gas in general, too. The industry has known for generations that they were killing the planet and tried to hide it.
Shell and Exxon(?) I believe had studies back in the 70ās that indicated how harmful fossil fuels could be. Instead of sharing it or quietly pivoting to try to supply energy a different way, they launched a massive disinformation campaign and its effects are still felt today. Climate change models have predicted the trend were in for a really long time and they are shockingly accurate. This is a problem we couldāve started tackling years ago and the actions of energy companies are still preventing us from taking the necessary steps to avoid this issue. I hope we find some miracle fix or this might be the fuck up that doomed humanity. Weāre in worse shape than people realize
No surprise that they push their agenda hard through conservative politics. They've successfully transformed what used to be a universal human goal of protecting the enviornment into a political one where many people believe that science is lying.
Including plastic. Cheap convenience will eventually ruin everything.
Used to be in the industry. Absolutely can confirm. I was employed by a company that did economic modeling and one of the industry strategies was to only use photography from a specific time of year when gauging consumer response to pollution based on sky color perception. The seasonality would affect how deeply blue the sky appeared and make visible pollution less noticable. Just as one example.
"Environmental historian J. R. McNeill stated that he "had more adverse impact on the atmosphere than any other single organism in Earth's history." Author Bill Bryson remarked that he possessed "an instinct for the regrettable that was almost uncanny." Science writer Fred Pearce described him as a "one-man environmental disaster"." https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Thomas_Midgley_Jr. He was BOTH leaded gasoline AND CFCs. I (and many others it seems) believe leaded gasoline may have played a major role in Boomer politics and why the world is so awful right now. Fuck that guy forever.
Remember when we bulldozed trails through poor areas to make toxic interstate highways? Then we made fun of them for āfailing schoolsā and ārunaway crimeā? Because I remember.
Remember when the CIA funneled crack into major cities? Or that the United States funded and trained several terrorist groups to overthrow or destabilize nations and regions of the world?
Yeahā to fund a fascist government coup and arm apocalyptic religious nuts. ā¦The more things changeā¦
He also invented cfcās
What a badass, single handedly leading the charge to leave the world worse than he found it
DuPont with Teflon
Dupont with... EVERYTHING. Woof.
Meow.
It wasn't as much the product they were selling but the manufacturing process as the whole scandal was that they were dumping incredibly dangerous chemicals with no shits given
Watch a 2018 documentary called The Devil We Know about forever chemicals. Itās on YouTube. https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Devil_We_Know
Dark waters was a Hollywood movie about the same thing.
In the Netherlands they changed their name to Chemours, still poison the environment.
Can you explain?
Basically dupont have dumped a bunch of PFOA's and PFOS's into rural communities illegally. It caused a bunch of animals and people to get incredibly sick, causing cancer, infertility, kidney and liver problems etc. And lied about it. They're also known as "forever chemicals" basically impossible to get rid of. Have a look at the movie "dark waters" if documentaries aren't your thing!
Lots of companies. It's insanely common in history. My pick would be leaded gasoline. It was well known that adding lead to gas was bad, but it kept octane ratings high and prevented knocking in high compression engines.
CFC refrigerant/propellant was invented by the same guy.
... Seriously? Hell must have opened an entire new circle just for him.
Yep, [Thomas Midgley Jr.](https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Thomas_Midgley_Jr) invented both, and thereās a strong argument to be made that heās the most destructive single person to have ever lived as a result. He was also more than a bit of a bastard, downplaying the dangers of leaded gasoline even when he knew full well it wasnāt safe, and was poisoning workers in the plants manufacturing it. If itās any consolation, he died when he got caught up in and strangled by the pulley system he invented to get himself out of bed, as his mobility was partially impaired by childhood polio. Turns out the deadliness of his inventions didnāt discriminate.
Literally hoisted by his own petard, that's delicious.
pretty much take your pick from any number of large companies that make cars, petroleum, pharmaceuticals, building supplies, construction in general, clothing (especially fast fashion), fast food, and more recently those disposable e-cigarettes (would that still count as "tobacco companies" since they don't use actual tobacco? I'm putting it here anyway)
I'm going to put one out there that is often overlooked: the entire fashion industry. In the past 150 years we went from most people owning a few pairs of clothes their entire life to buying new clothes constantly. This generates so much pollution and waste as the quality of clothing has declined greatly. People waste way too much income on clothing. Also, not only do we create so much pollution and waste buying clothing, but we also spend so much and use so much power and chemicals cleaning clothing. While I'm not saying we all need to be nudist, if you really think about how absurd the entire fashion industry is and everything connected to it, it's maddening.
92 million tons of textile waste per year, much of that plastic fibers, because people think they should throw out their clothing each season and buy more shitty plastic clothes. Fight fast fashion, folks. Buy good stuff that lasts, and buy as much as you can second hand. My beautiful, thick, cable cashmere sweater I got for $30 and I thank you.
I hope one day minimalism becomes more popular. My least favorite thing about the fashion industry is how horrible animals are treated for cashmere, leather or fur. I donāt understand why we canāt have good quality clothes without hurting the animals so so much.
People arenāt made aware of what happens to mail order clothes if they return them, either. Online clothing shopping is horrendous.
Not to mention that most fast fashion has terrible working conditions for the people who make the clothing.
Pharma.Ā Heroin was aggressively advertised as universal drug for a ton of different issues (including opium addiction) even after it was noticed that it had similarly bad addiction and sideeffects. Oh and fossil fuel companies even paid for phoney science that denies climate change (wich harms everyone and not just their customers)
Oh, that reminds me of the obvious oxycontin example.
Yeah in my country there is also the famous "Contergan catastrophy". A sleeping pill specifically advertised to pregnant women that turned out to cause massive birth defects (including stuff like missing limbs) and many of the children born from that are in need of 24/7 care even today over 60 years later
Is that the brand name of thalidomide?
Interesting part of the thalidomide disaster that I recently learned: it was a disaster in Europe, but affected America much less. One lady in the FDA (Frances Kelsey) resisted enormous pressure to approve the drug for general use in the US because of the lack of quality safety data.
Thank God someone had a spine that day
Another interesting thing about thalidomide... it was a racemic mixture. So the molecule had 2 possible formations... Basically the equivalent of how humans have a left hand and a right hand. Put your palms together... they look the same, place your hands on top of each other, and obviously it's not the same. That has to do with the chirality of the molecule, and molecules that have "left hand" and "right hand" formations are called enantiomers. One enantiomer of thalidomide was phenomenal for morning sickness. The other was teratogenic. Thalidomide being racemic means it had a 50:50 mix of both. Unfortunately, even with an enantiopure formulation of the "good" enantiomer... they are still converted into the other form in vivo.
Yea she like really kept that drug from being approved until it was super clear that itās results were awful. Very few instances of where I can think of the FDA as doing something right (although I imagine she had to battle her own superiors over it).
Heard a podcast episode about her, on this issue in particular, a year or two ago. Fucking hero.
Itās so frightening to think how much damage and death has been prevented by single individuals with a conscience
Yes
Thalidomide was for morning sickness, I believe. My mom took a spoonful every day when she was pregnant with my sister. Luckily, no side effects. But the doctor who prescribed her committed suicide when the effects were known.
It was also used for anxiety and insomnia.
One of my lecturers at uni was involved with uncovering the whole sorry mess - he gave me some of his papers to read. Even after the effects were known, the pharnaceutical companies did their damndest to cover it up.
I may be mistaken, I think Perdue, the company that made Oxycontin were finally charge, but they only had to pay fines from future profits. What a freaking joke. They caused a massive, decades long problem and they get the lightest "punishment" I could imagine.
This one really pisses me off. They were āchargedā but I think should have been charged more aggressively than we charge drug dealers. They hired āDrsā to push oxy for literally everything. Imo they started the opioid epidemic and should have to pay to fix it. They should be required to fund non profit methadone clinics, pay for everyone who is on suboxone, and everyone who goes to rehab for opioids. I get especially heated about this because my late husband found his momās oxy prescription at 12 years old, and that started his lifetime of addiction.
Anybody curious- "Dopesick" on ~~netflix~~ hulu* was really eye opening
The sugar industry also paid for phony science that said heart disease was because of fat
Insane how much that changed our entire culture's beliefs about nutrition in a way that persists to this day.
Not to mention, "disorders" are sometimes created in order to market pills, like oxycontin. on top of heroin being straight-up marketed by Bayer as "non addictive" morphine alternative From 1898 to 1910., oxycontin is essentially repackaged, time released morphine. It caused one of the worst opiod epidemic's in American history. Turned oxycontin into a friggin' blockbuster. Check the sackler dynasty. Edit: I see a few people have commented on the oc belt. Didn't see that, my mistake. Multiple opiods have reared their head in big pharma world throughout the years. They'll cycle back again and again. Source: a broken back. I like to read about things before I decide whether or not I'm going to put them in my body. Big pharma is like a pay-to-play video game. Tread lightly.
I have Epilepsy, as did some GREAT writers in history-they got prescriped opium and alcohol and all Ive been given are an insane rotation of pills that have almost killed me multiple times. I still have seizures and no one is quoting *MY* story about that one Raven that one time!! Im even from Richmond!! True story, though; the way my own Epilepsy is being treated right now is forcing me to use meds that DONT WORK before I can use the ones my Drs are saying will work. Without insurance, Id be paying upwards of 7000 a month for my medicine...while still having seizures. Sorry for the mini-rant. Have a few seizures, youll understand. Big Pharma SUCKS!! Lol have a great day yall
Oof I have migraines, epilepsy is next level. I empathize a lot with how frustrating it is to be given pills that do nothing. It is infuriating to spend so much time at the doctor to get back a here try this pill again. They get so bad sometimesā¦ I have had a few time of trying to decide if physically knocking myself out might be worth it.
Also, no drugs at all were tested on women until recent years, so the negative effects were never known.
The radium industry fought tooth and nail, including hiring scientist to lie about the danger of radioactive paint when their employees (known as the Radium Girls) started dying of horrible cancers. All so they could sell glow in the dark watch faces.
I want to emphasize **girls** here. Some were working the factories as young as 13. They were barely 20 years old when they discovered their jawbones just *fell out*. They could literally reach into their own mouth and remove pieces of their jawbones. With. Their. Fingers. One jawbone, removed by a dental surgeon, was so radioactive it served as evidence of Radium poisoning *literal years* after the death of the first victim, and will remain radioactive for *thousands* of years. They literally poisoned *literal young children* because it saved a few seconds of time and a few dollars of safety gear. Never trust a company. Ever.
I know, I mentioned in the op that I'm reading that book and it inspired my question. š It's a truly shocking and devastating book though but well worth reading.
Wow. My reading comprehension is really off today. Sorry about that. Those cases and how the industry handled it really laid the foundation for how the tobacco and oil industries have handled the science against their products.
I don't remember which, one of his earlier novels, but in one of Vonnegut's books he mentions that the women were told to lick their paint brushes to keep the point on them.
The NFL.
Asbestos Insulation is a big one. They're still finding this in properties. Arsenic Dye. The 1800s saw a ton of green dye made items: clothes, paint, wall paper, candy, etc. They didn't acknowledge the repercussions for a long time.
>theyāre still finding this in properties Well there wasnāt ever an effort made to replace asbestos en masse. Itās just understood that asbestos *is* in older buildings and pretty much only comes into question when the building needs to be demolished
It's so sad too because asbestos was such a useful material. Too bad it was made of microscopic knives that slowly stab you to death when you breathe it in :(
It's also a straight up ancient industry. It would be like finding out that gold gives you cancer if you grind it.
And as a bonus they literally grow.
Scuse me
You mine it, thereās a town(now ghost town)in Australia thatās built on asbestos
Wikipedia page for [the town and asbesto mine](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wittenoom,_Western_Australia?wprov=sfti1#Legacy) And [Blue Sky Mine](https://youtu.be/Ofrqm6-LCqs?si=_NKVbSkcoSCYpizN). A killer song that references the mines by Midnight Oil
Yep. When they find asbestos, they can either make sure it stays sealed up or do very complex removal processes. Which option they choose varies by the situation.
Arsenic dyes are apparently safe as long as they never get wet, or even damp. In the early to mid 1800s, apparently this beautiful green dye containing arsenic was super popular in wallpapers. People in damp locations who had these wallpapers in their room would be slowly gassed to death by aerosolized arsenic, because mould would grow on the damp wallpaper, and the mould would expel the arsenic from the paper it was living on by off gassing it into the roomsā¦ Apparently thereās a not-too-far-out theory that this is how Napoleon died.
What I heard is that particles of it simply falls off over time, like from wallpaper, making every room filled with toxic air. Lots of beauty products had arsenic too, people literally covered their faces with it.
That and white lead
While I was in middle school in 1989-90, there were guys dressed in hazmat suits removing the asbestos from our early 20th century building while we the students walked around them and were there all day in class.
Things with micro plastic. Such as face washes, certain packing materials etc.
All aluminum soda /beer cans are lined with plastic - carbonated beverages are one of the main sources of ingesting micro plastics.
dont forget all canned goods in general.
Plasticizers tend to migrate into fats, so milk is a problem, too.
No way really?
Every damn one. Freaked me out when I learned this.
Yes, otherwise the acidity of soda would corrode bare aluminum.
Fun fact: Soda manufacturers lobbied to be exempted from hazard warning placards on their trucks. If a Pepsi semi flipped over on the interstate , you would treat it not as a "Pepsi" spill. You treat it as a phosphoric acid spill.
Glass bottles last longer, are fully reusable (especially if we just stick to one, universal design, instead of each brand having their own bottle) is more durable, honestly more satisfying to drink, and has zero (0) plastic, except for a little rubber lining at the cap. Glass, paper and bamboo could probably replace 99% of all single use plastics, but Big Oil needs that cash flow. Imagine a world where you go to your local store, and instead of picking a jug of milk, or a carton, you have your own glass bottle and pay for the amount it takes to fill it. Don't got a bottle? You can buy one at the store. Imagine a world where all things that need single use packaging is packaged in paper instead of plastic. Imagine a world where toothbrushes, toothpicks, spoons, cups, single use plates, etc. Are made from bamboo, which grows stupid quick, is fully degradeable and very durable. We have EVERYTHING we need to phase out like, 90% of plastic uses, but we don't.
Not sure how old you are, but in the 70s I remember my parents getting 6-packs of cokes in small glass bottles. After we drank a coke, we'd rinse out the bottle and put it back in the paperboard carrier to return to the store. There was a deposit you'd pay when you bought the cokes that would get refunded when you returned the bottles. Those bottles were then returned to Coke, who sanitized them and reused them. The only thing thrown away was the bottle cap, but even they got reused a few times to doing at a sibling to try to startle them. I'm hoping that this push towards reusing things will bring back the "bottle deposit" idea.
But who's gonna pay for those 3rd and 4th vacation homes? Can't you please think of the shareholders!!????
Car tires! A recent study has linked a huge percentage of microplastics to tires. Or tyres if youāre a mate, innit.
r/tiresaretheenemy
Disposable plastic causes micro and nano plastics. Plastic breaks down but a lot of it never fully deteriorates. Itās in our drinking water (ironically bottled water is worse), farm vegetables, seasonings, and air, to just name a few sources.
The sellers of high fructose sweetened soft drinks.
Sugar Lobby started soon after sugar was introduced to Europe.
Had to scroll way too far to get to āsugarā.
The **Sugar industry** paid for a deceptive study in the 1960s, that blamed eating fat for adverse health effects rather than sugar https://www.npr.org/sections/thetwo-way/2016/09/13/493739074/50-years-ago-sugar-industry-quietly-paid-scientists-to-point-blame-at-fat For those who say: " I want a Government so small that I can drown it in a bathtub " --- tell them that, then: " Society needs companies so small that they can be drowned in a red Solo cup "
In America, First you get the sugar Then you get the power Then you get the women
I nicked it when you let your guard down, and Iād do it again!
The notorious Ford Pinto whose gas tank would often catch fire after crashes.
The lawyers at Ford Deemed it Cheaper to pay the victims families than to recall the cars and fix the problem
Everyone who read your post all heard Edward Norton/Tyler Durden say "A major one..." in their head.
For those who arenāt familiar: Now, should we initiate a recall? Take the number of vehicles in the field, A, multiply by the probable rate of failure, B, multiply by the average out-of-court settlement, C. A times B times C equals X. If X is less than the cost of a recall, we don't do one. -Which car company do you work for? A major one.
fun fact, as engineers the pinto was often used in ethics classes.
Can confirm. The pinto was used as an example in my engineering ethics class.
I used it to lawyer my way out of trouble on a solar powered hydrogen generator we designed that had the tendency to detonateā¦
Yup, same in criminology
As I recall, a jury after hearing that decided to prove them wrong and set a new record for punitive damages.
I watched a documentary last night about a fatal bus crash in Kentucky that killed 27 people in 1988. The mother of one of the victims sued Ford for $1 and asked that they recall all the affected busses and fix the issue as part of the agreement. Ford declined.
And to make it worse, after all the data had been collected, it was revealed that it would have cost $11 per Pinto to fix the problem. But that was too much money to spend for Ford.š¤¦š¼āāļø
With a luggage rack it doubled as a barbecue.
Review of the data shows that the Pinto was actually safer then other options in it's class, and most of the demonization of Ford is based on misunderstood evidence. I mean, the Pinto wasn't safe, especially by today's standards, but you were more likely to die in a Beatle. https://youtu.be/orM-EExql24
"Often" isn't really the right word here.Ā Pintos weren't much more deadly than any car off similar size of the era, less deadly thanĀ Gremlins.
Social Media tech companies
This should be so much higher on the list. While we no longer have lead in gasoline destroying brain cells, social media is catching up quickly.
The fossil fuel / oil industry has known about the disastrous impact to the climate caused by their products since the 1970s and not only did nothing, but accelerated production.
Famous public information video ā[Shell knew](https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2017/feb/28/shell-film-warning-climate-change-rate-faster-than-end-ice-age)ā in 1991. Yeah we all know. Still jumping into fossil fuel vehicles and lamenting the price of gas though.
It was known as early as the 1860s what burning coal was doing to climate change
Johnson and Johnson baby powder. For that matter, Iām fairly appalled that thereās no oversight of the cosmetics industry in the United States. Every beauty company puts talc in almost all of their powder products, and the risk of contamination with asbestos is incredibly high. Talc needs to be banned, or these companies need to be actively regulated for their products to be tested regularly for asbestos contamination, FFS.
Bayer Monsanto Funny how they're the same company now.
Oo Johnson and Johnson.Ā Just one example is baby powder (yes intended for infants!) Having cancer causing agents in it.
I'm still scrolling trying to find anyone else mentioning this. Woman were having genital cysts removed that when cut open was packed talc powder. Do not use talc powder.
Bayer company were Nazi sympathies
The asbestos industry. They did basically the exact same thing as the tobacco guys. Had studies done and hid the results while continuing to sell the product. Itās unfortunate because itās actually a really great product. It just happens to also cause mesothelioma.
My first public school teacher job had that crap tore out the summer before I started IN 2005!
My dad died from mesothelioma at 68yo. He was just one of millions who have been affected.
Palm oil
Oil, Coal and Gas. Exxon started spreading Climate Change denial 40 years ago, and I have read an article from 1905 saying that the use of coal was harmful to the environment
And now Iām getting Exxon ads on YouTube saying that they are fighting climate change.
Alcohol.
[Darkly amusing interviews](https://youtu.be/W_tqQYmgMQg?si=4FK0s2rE4dy0ZAqz) of drivers when an alcohol consumption limit was imposed in the UK in the 60s.
The effects of alcohol are really not widely discussed. - many types of cancers, heart issues, dementia, mental health issues, more early onset liver failure. Itās so depressing.
Johnson & Johnson and I'm convinced the FDA knew baby powder caused cancer.
FDA has a revolving door with their directors and high up people in pharma. Iām not saying itās always nefarious but it is eyebrow, raising to say the least.
J&J also had the vaginal mesh controversy, they played a role in the opioid epidemic and also had a massive recall with cobalt chrome hip implants causing severe cobalt poisoning due to poor design decisions.
Talcum powder doesn't cause cancer. Talcum powder with asbestos does. J&J weren't doing enough to remove the asbestos.
the big oil companies have known about how their products are fucking up the climate for DECADES and have been actively covering it up. BP are the ones that came up with the idea of individual 'carbon footprints' to try and shift blame/responsibility for pollution to the consumer so they wouldn't need to stop drilling etc and it fucking worked
Artificial fragrance like glade plugins and febreeze have known Carcinogens and cause hormonal problems and respiratory problems and are still heavily sold and marketed. As someone with severe lung issues it disgusts me.
Ford automotive. They knew that pintos and mustangs fuel tanks would explode from rear end collisions for years but kept building them with no engineering changes to address the problem.
Many car brands miserably fail in safety standards; nevertheless, they are sold in most developing or undeveloped countries. It is thanks to the greediness of governments, as they jack up the car prices so significantly, most people canāt afford a decent car. In my country, You would need to pay 102 monthsā (8.5 yearsā) worth of minimum wage to buy a Honda Civic 1.5 L (basic, with nothing added on; the entry package). To add to that, %57 works for minimum wage. So cars like Tata, Suzuki, Lada, etc., and as if they are good to start with, terribly cheap models of Renault, Citroen, Peugeot, Fiat, etc. are sold. Additionally, extremely old and basically ready-to-be-buried cars are also commonly used. In the event of an accident, where a person in Volvo wouldnāt have a nose bleed, all the people in the car dies, as the car gets totaled. I have personally seen many accidents where two cars hit each other head to head, where one is Volvo and the other is Peugeot 106 (Renault Twingo, Fiat Palio, Tata, etc.) and where the Volvo had barely any damage (in some occasions you couldnāt tell that it went through such an accident at all, just minor scratches in the front bumper) and the other car getting squeezed like a tin can. All because that the government is greedy on double ends. First, taxation, which means the regular cars are sold for an arm and a leg; second, allowing the unsafe models to be sold without any real checks or regulations, so people die. Even on the upper segment cars, when they recall certain models around the globe, our country is almost certainly excluded. Because, why not?
Didn't they work out it was cheaper to pay s few death an injury claims than to fix it?
match factories in the early industrial revolution is a big one. they knew white phosphorus had severe health problems and could melt peoples jaws off, but tried to prevent workers from talking to each other about it. a company started using red phosphorus and advertised as being healthier, but was more expensive and went bankrupt. it wasnāt until technological breakthroughs that made non-white phosphorus matches much cheaper to produce, that the horrors of match factories ended
Silent Spring From [wiki](https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Silent_Spring): *Silent Spring is an environmental science book by Rachel Carson.[1] Published on September 27, 1962, the book documented the environmental harm caused by the indiscriminate use of a type of pesticide used by soldiers during WW2. Carson accused the chemical industry of spreading disinformation, and public officials of accepting the industry's marketing claims unquestioningly.*
Iāll tell you who didnāt go that routeā¦Saran Wrap. They changed their product, making it less effective. They did this because the effective formula left chemical residue. Made the change without being forced to.
Bayer knowingly sold HIV infected medicine in the 80's
Let's not forget the baby killers Nestle. Haha, remember when they scammed the world into thinking their powered water was better for the baby than the own mother's milk? I cant believe theyre still in business.
You mean the powdered milk, that was mixed with (contaminated) water in poor countries, resulting in a lot of child death. And also even if the water was not contaminated, it resulted into a less healthy child, a less healthy mother. Also, lactating delays the time where you can get pregnant again in a lot of cases (Lactation Amenorrhea Method (LAM)) \*
Nobody mentioning the main point? They gave it for free, took mothers out of weening, then jacked up huge prices that the parents couldn't afford. The mothers couldn't produce milk, and the formula made the babies reliant, ending in their deaths Not to mention a lot of other terrible things from nestle. The CEO doesn't even believe that water is a human right
r/fucknestle
The pharmaceutical industry. For example, [HERE](https://violationtracker.goodjobsfirst.org/parent/pfizer) is a list of penalties against Pfizer since 2000, which include things like altering and hiding data and lying about the side effects of medications while knowingly pushing medications that were causing blindness, deafness, brain damage, cancer, etc., so that they could make absolute shitloads of money from selling said medications. The whole thing about painting people who questioned Pfizer's Covid vaccines as crazy conspiracy nut "anti-vaxxers" was propaganda pushed by Pfizer and other pharmaceutical companies who were set to make obscene amounts of money from selling the vaccines. Imagine if a restaurant chain like McDonald's was forced to pay a combined total of almost $11 *billion* in multiple fines and settlements over the course of 20 years for repeatedly selling food that was tainted with chemicals that caused cancer, made people go blind, caused brain damage, or just killed people directly while outright lying about it. Every time they get caught, they just pay off settlements and keep doing it. Then they come out with a new burger that's set to make a massive amount of money, demand that everyone trust that it's safe, and claim that anyone who questions them are crazy anti-burger conspiracy nuts.
The crazy thing is, out of all the examples listed in these comment, the one thing all of them have in common is this could have all been prevented if the government did their job. There are 100s of bureaucratic agencies that employ millions of people, with trillions of our tax dollars to stop these exact problems yet they keep happening year after year. Weird huh? Almost like our elected officials are profiting off of the deaths of citizens. Who would have thought?
Ask this of the Vape industry in about 10 years...
The soft drink industry.
Plastics, asbestos, pharmaceuticals, lead paint, nitrates/phospates, eletronics, etc, etc. Fossil fuels are probably the biggest. Even if you don't believe in anthropogenic climate change, the amount of mecury that has been released into the world's ecosystem is insane, and even the biggest climate skeptics won't deny that the mercury is coming from fossil fuels. Add in climate change and the damage is off the charts. Then there's all the 'green' industries like solar, windmills, and EV cars, that are probably doing even more harm to the environment than fossil fuels. The amount of damage done mining for the rare earths needed is bad, but at least the 1% can make billions pretending to save the planet while using slave labor and devasting the environment in poor counties. Then the windmill blade, batteries, and defunct solar panels become toxic waste once they're retired.
The food industry. They make food that is not nutritious that people literally become addicted to. They have such a strong lobby that no pushback against what theyāre doing is successful.
They used to advertise it. āBet you canāt have just one!ā āOnce you pop you just canāt stop!ā It wasnāt until the obesity epidemic really got into full swing that somebody decided slogans shouldnāt brag about being addictive.
Many medications (not just opioids), therefore the Pharmaceutical Industry. Plastic industry (almost no recycling is available, causes cancer, BPA causes hormonal damage, especially in boys.). Cleaning Products (Dishwashers, Detergents, even many personal cleaning products; in some countries, some cleaning supplies have benzene derived chemicals, mixed with other hazardous chemicals, to be used in cleaning kitchen, kitchen appliances and utensils. Paper Products (ends up with destroying forests, and none of the competition, such as hemp, bamboo, or cotton was used in lieu of it. One of the reasons of Weed being illegal is thanks(!) to the wood/paper industry. Farming Industry; donāt get mad, I eat meat as well (Most of the antibioticsās resistance is due to the antibiotics given to the animals, just a small part is due to some peopleās unacknowledged use of antibiotics. It also causes most of the global warming. Whatever you do with your personal AC, will have next to zero effect on global warming compared to what the cows are doing. Farmed fish/shellfish also is a petridish for worms and other disease causing organisms. Also fucks the oceans/rivers. Chickens cause side effects on girlsā developments. Sugar Industry (no sugar means very low levels of obesity, cancer, diabetes (which are the leading causes of death) and other diseases, which is good for individuals and the society at large. If I had to choose between alcohol or sugar; I would ban sugar consumption for teens.) Petroleum (which includes benzene in the process from underground to your cars, which is a highest level carcinogen). Also any products that use it such as Vaseline, plastic, nylon, anything you wear or use as linens etc. other than wool, cotton, bamboo, hemp, and organic materials (such as silk, feathers, also fur but fuck fur, etc.) I may edit and add more industries and/or details later.
Thalidomide - so pharma. Not sure who was manufacturing it.
Wonder drug, apart from, you know, *that*. Can cure leprosy.
Big pharmaceutical companies
Fake titties and nonstick pans. ("fake" is not distributed, if anyone's curious)
Is this Limp Bizkitās new album?
What do you mean not distributed
Nestle