Except they did have. Romans and antique people in general were smarter than you give them credit for. When they were about to set up a city, they would look fo

Except they did have. Romans and antique people in general were smarter than you give them credit for. When they were about to set up a city, they would look for local villages and check how many long lived people there were. If people were not living into their 80's and 90's, they would conclude the water (or something else) in the location is unhealthy and look for another place. They didn't have to know the exact reason, just that the place was unhealthy. There was a similar article on HN recently, I think it was about ancient hospital in Turkey. A ruler determined preferable location by hanging meat around the city and seeing where it rots the slowest. I didn't bring up vaccines because they are used to prevent infectious diseases. Taking a vaccine or not is not only your business, because it affects people around you. They also use methods like horseshoe crab blood for testing and it convinces me. I don't know where you live but around here food industry is chock full of additives, preservatives, and 'flavors identical to natural'. Food industry and chemistry can be used to do good, but often they're just used for greed. It's a constant arms race between consumer rights groups, testing various substances, and food industry coming up with a new one that hasn't been proven harmful _yet_. There are documentary movies like All That Sugar. Also, I know it's nasty but in some European countries we call sizes beyond XXL "American Size". American food is especially heavily processed. It used to be that only the rich were fat, now it's the opposite. The poor can't afford healthy food. GMO is making changes in spaghetti code, except genetic labs are much more expensive than chemical labs. See above. Why would they use them to make food healthier when they can make it tastier and cheaper to make? More sales, bigger profits. Do you think they have unit tests and regression tests for genome? Look how much trouble there is with Roundup, pesticides and herbicides. Consider plastics. There's an ungodly amount of propaganda and entire industry set up on systematic lies. Best case scenario for recycling plastics is 30% return, after careful segregation (there are over 100 varieties). Most of it ends up in landfills in Asia or Africa instead. Even if you do get some recycled plastic, it's of worse quality. The public has been manipulated into thinking recycling plastics helps a great deal. Coca Cola is one of the biggest polluters in the world, and it's actively sponsoring recycling efforts because it SHIFTS THE BLAME. Everyone bringing up plastic pollution has been ridiculed for DECADES. Consider omnipresent sugar, and the campaign to demonize fats in food. Consider cholesterol or butter. And you're telling me I should just jump at 5G with only a few years of studies? I don't need 5G, autonomous auto industry needs it. I'll gladly be called a lunatic, idiot, paranoid and worse for being skeptical, patient and cautious.