I’ve read a few historical science books recently, The Radium Girls, and The Chemical Age amongst them. One common factor when detailing the dangers of chemicals is the manner in which they were treated as a miracle cure, wonder drug, panacea for all ills. You shake your head in wonder at accounts of people drinking “radium water” to improve their health, or states deploying DDT with wild abandon. In all of these cases, initial positive results in some areas were extrapolated to be a cu...
