I watched a documentary on Netflix a while back that talked about the Radium health craze and carelessness. I think it was about the rise of investigative chemistry with regard to poisonings, etc.
As long as the mindset of "we're done hearing from experts!" is allowed to resurface again and again, we'll have this problem. See: Anti-vaccers, the insanity with radium, maybe even Bob Marley's toe cancer.
The radium portion was especially sad, but fit in quite well with the lead section in american societies willingness to poison people to improve profit.
The radium portion was horrifying to think about.