Chemical security

The Slow Demise of Asbestos, the Carcinogen that Gave 'The Wizard of Oz' Snow

Throughout our history as a country, we've quickly turned on popular products we once liked because of unintended effects from that product, usually health-related. (You know, like Chipotle.)

But perhaps the product we've most famously done this with is asbestos, the naturally occurring fibery crystals which gained infamy after we realized that those fibers were dangerous carcinogens. It's an issue that still gets frequently litigated today—due in part to the 27.5 million workers exposed to the substance between 1940 and 1979, according to a 1986 report by the American Thoracic Society.

The for-profit Asbestos.com notes that health issues related to asbestos were detected as far back as 1897 and the material was linked to mesothelioma as far back as the 1930s.