#phocomelia

Let me give you some homework, research like any of these

Asbestos

The cover-up (and really continued cover-up) of Asbestos killing factory workers, civilians, and 9/11 victims by Asbestos profiting corporations such as Johns-Manville, Raybestos Manhattan, National Gypsum Company & several more

Entire towns and cities are still poisoned to this day due to proximity of mixed mineral mines known to contain asbestos

And by the way asbestos is far more dangerous than they probably told back in history, as it is not only carcinogenic (cancer-causing), but it basically turns your lungs into sandpaper from the inside out

Lead

The cover-up of the discovery of lead and chromium poisoning by companies and organizations such as Dupont, the Lead Industries Association, NL Industries, General Motors, and many more

According to the WHO in 2022 one million people still die every year from lead poisoning, and that's just the people who die, not including those who will be affected with long-term health effects by lead (especially children)

Even the creator of Leaded Gasoline, Thomas Midgley Jr. participated in cover-ups and spreading misinformation about the safety of lead up until his very death

PFAS Chemicals

Again Dupont dumped PFAS chemicals into the Ohio River for decades

And tried to threaten and silence families, rural and urban, that had evidence of not only the cancer caused by PFAS chemicals but the severe birth defects in both people and animals

Chemours, another major company got into similar trouble for basically doing the exact same thing to an entire city in West Virginia

Several other companies have been involved in similar things, and the regulation of PFAS chemicals is still not very strong in so-called "first world" nations

Also if you're anywhere from a boomer to gen Z you are likely poisoned with PFAS chemicals right now, especially C8

(I mean it's in your microwave popcorn)

Thalidomide

When initially released as a potential medicine for nausea during pregnancy without proper research on the medicine's effect on the development of fetus and baby, it became instantly obvious that Thalidomide caused major birth defects, especially phocomelia and dysmelia.

What made this issue into such a massive scandal though wasn't the improper research or testing because of the time period (1950s-1960s)

But instead we can focus on the nation at the time of West Germany. It's board of health was basically gutted and in shambles due to the mess that it was a decade beforehand under the regime of the nazis. While the Germans dilly-dallied about proper regulation and research into the sudden boom of birth defects they were noting, thousands of children were born with phocomelia and dysmelia

Mad Cow Disease

Due to the fact that Britain wanted to cut as many corners as possible in the production of beef, they decided upon the brilliant idea to feed cows... cow.

This instead lead to a semi-global, but especially local, outbreak of one of the most dangerous and scariest diseases in the world- a form of Prion Disease, dubbed Mad Cow Disease (BSE) for animals and vCJD for humans, and yes it was technically zoonotic as you obtained it through consumption of contaminated meat.

(You can also pass it to any children if anybody happened to catch it while pregnant, and it sits dormant, and it kills you by eating you from the inside out and turning your brain into a sponge)

Despite the fact the Britain knew pretty early on that a brand new never-before seen disease was appearing in its cows, they didn't do a damn thing about it and continued to tell people that beef was safe

Even as other animals, specifically people's pet cats and a tiger from a zoo developed the disease, they continued to tell people that beef was safe

Only after A DECADE of spread did the alarm sound, and in 1996 the Secretary of State for Health announced that cow meat was related to the prion disease spread

I honestly could keep going as I haven't even had a chance to touch on similar scandals in non-western nations, or many of the similar scandals we are currently going through right now