There were two different types of thoughts from two separate thought camps. And I'll briefly explain why they were both terrible for you, but in different ways.
There was camp 1: "probably bad for you, but no studies existed that were available to the public that could verify the claims without really expensive lawfare to get them to release the info."
And camp 2: "Intentionally withholding evidence that the product is bad, to continue selling it."
Cigarettes, to use the OP's example, was part of camp 1. Probably bad for you, but not a lot of empirical evidence available to the common man to back it up. I think people knew that inhaling smoke is bad for you, after all smoke inhalation killed more people than fire ever has. But nicotine is in the top 10 most addictive chemicals on the planet, so quitting isn't exactly easy.
Talcum powder is in camp 2. They knew it was bad in the 1920s, because it naturally forms almost always near asbestos. And thinking of that, they knew asbestos was bad in the 20s, but didn't really do anything about it until the 1960s. And even then the idea was "Don't disturb it if the asbestos wrapped pipes are fine". Wholesale removals and replacements didn't start happening until the late 1980s into the 2000s.
Talcum powder on the other hand was found to contain much higher traces of asbestos than they ever let on. Because of the lawsuit, we now know of an in house study by Johnson & Johnson done in 1972 or 1973 (I forget off hand which) that there was dangerous levels of asbestos in their talcum powder. J&J chose to hide that info from consumers until 2018 when an independant lab was tasked in testing it, because of the cancer and death thought to be caused by the product, and got red flagged.
Between these two products alone, there are at least 7 different types of cancers you could have.
Not to mention lead in everything from paint to gasoline. And all the other things out there just waiting to attribute to your death if you're near it/get it on you/use it without being told of the risks/etc.
At this point, I think just being alive is incredible in the age of "Who cares if your loved ones died, we made enough money to have a healthy profit margin and a compensation fund."
There were two different types of thoughts from two separate thought camps. And I'll briefly explain why they were both terrible for you, but in different ways.
There was camp 1: "probably bad for you, but no studies existed that were available to the public that could verify the claims without really expensive lawfare to get them to release the info."
And camp 2: "Intentionally withholding evidence that the product is bad, to continue selling it."
Cigarettes, to use the OP's example, was part of camp 1. Probably bad for you, but not a lot of empirical evidence available to the common man to back it up. I think people knew that inhaling smoke is bad for you, after all smoke inhalation killed more people than fire ever has. But nicotine is in the top 10 most addictive chemicals on the planet, so quitting isn't exactly easy.
Talcum powder is in camp 2. They knew it was bad in the 1920s, because it naturally forms almost always near asbestos. And thinking of that, they knew asbestos was bad in the 20s, but didn't really do anything about it until the 1960s. And even then the idea was "Don't disturb it if the asbestos wrapped pipes are fine". Wholesale removals and replacements didn't start happening until the late 1980s into the 2000s.
Talcum powder on the other hand was found to contain much higher traces of asbestos than they ever let on. Because of the lawsuit, we now know of an in house study by Johnson & Johnson done in 1972 or 1973 (I forget off hand which) that there was dangerous levels of asbestos in their talcum powder. J&J chose to hide that info from consumers until 2018 when an independant lab was tasked in testing it, because of the cancer and death thought to be caused by the product, and got red flagged.
Between these two products alone, there are at least 7 different types of cancers you could have.
Not to mention lead in everything from paint to gasoline. And all the other things out there just waiting to attribute to your death if you're near it/get it on you/use it without being told of the risks/etc.
At this point, I think just being alive is incredible in the age of "Who cares if your loved ones died, we made enough money to have a healthy profit margin and a compensation fund."