This must be the most famous line from a poem by the celebrated Scottish poet Robert Burns, written in 1785. It is written in the Scots-language, and translates as:

"The best-laid schemes of mice and men,
Often go awry"

This line has become very iconic, and proverbially refers to the sad reality that sometimes even the most seemingly brilliant ideas that hold such promise, can often subsequently prove to be really -really- bad, and in hindsight it is clear they were cursed from the start. There are many 'effects' in the world, which are observable results and outcomes of phenomena. One 'effect' which I personally like to coin is the 'Pruitt-Igoe Effect', which refers to anything which is ostensibly propitious at first, but then later proves to be quite the opposite. Sadly it is quite often the case that we don't realise how damaging something is until the damage in question has already been done, here are some examples.

Pruitt-Igoe:

Let's begin with the abovementioned Pruitt-Igoe, which is such an iconic example that the very name 'Pruitt-Igoe' is now synonymous with high hopes being swiftly dashed by disaster. Intended as a brilliant public housing scheme it very rapidly turned into an urban nightmare, becoming world famous (or infamous) as a hotbed of crime and deprivation.

High-rise buildings were literally on the rise in the years following World War 2. They were advertised as a marvellous new kind of home, with all the amenities one needed neatly condensed into a cosy apartment. They were an ideal solution for governments in many countries to solve housing shortage problems, as they can house hundreds of people in one building.

In the city of St Louis, Missouri, there was a housing crisis in the 1940s, with slum neighbourhoods in such bad conditions they were compared to Dickensian London. Public housing facilities were built to ease the problem, and one such project was the Pruitt-Igoe complex.

Completed in 1955, 33 high-rise buildings, 11 storeys each, were to house 13,000 people. What a splendid and cost-effective solution to the housing crisis it was, or so the government originally thought. But tragically within a few short years things took a serious downturn.

The federal government subsidised the construction of the buildings, but didn't make arrangements for funding maintenance. Maintenance was supposed to be funded by the rent paid by tenants, but this would mean as much as 75% of their income went on rent. Even this was not a huge amount, as many of the tenants were on low incomes to begin with.

The buildings themselves began to deteriorate badly. Pipes burst, elevators stopped working. Conditions apparently got so bad in places that sewage from burst pipes would run down stairwells.

Having to pay most of their money to live in such wretched and miserable conditions it was no wonder the residents became so disaffected. Antisocial behaviour such as vandalism, theft, and violence became commonplace. From the late 50s onward the residents left in droves. So many left that several of the blocks were totally abandoned and were boarded up.

Pruitt-Igoe might have stood as a monument to short sighted urban planning, if it hadn't been totally demolished merely 20 years after being built. Throughout the 1970s the buildings of Pruitt-Igoe were one by one destroyed, the last remaining block being demolished in 1976, the final end of Pruitt-Igoe.

But despite being long gone, the abject legacy of Pruitt-Igoe will no doubt not be forgotten, and hopefully serve as a valuable reminder of the real dangers of hasty government decision making on serious and complex housing issues.
There are actually numerous similar examples of high-rise housing programmes in other cities and countries which inadvertently caused more problems than they solved, but Pruitt-Igoe is surely the most infamous example.

Asbestos:

Nowadays even hearing the word asbestos may make us cringe with dread since we know how dangerous it is, but long before its deadly effects were realised it featured heavily in peoples' lives and homes.

Asbestos is a naturally occurring material that has been used for thousands of years. There are different forms which all are composed of fine crystalline fibres. It is malleable, durable, abundant, and, most usefully of all, heat resistant. As such it is very versatile and fulfils a huge range of valuable uses.

So at the turn of the 20th century, with society fast adapting and growing in the wake of the Industrial Revolution, hundreds of thousands of tonnes of asbestos were mined and used on an industrial scale, incorporated into all kinds of products, and the very fabric of buildings and houses. Furniture, drainage pipes, floor tiles, ceiling tiles, boilers, appliances, and many other commonplace household items were lined with asbestos.

Great! So what's the problem?

Well in addition to being versatile and super useful, asbestos is also extremely dangerous and carcinogenic. Asbestos fibres are infinitesimal, and if breathed in they enter and stick to the deepest recesses of the lungs. They damage the lining of the lungs, causing scarring, and lead to very aggressive forms of lung cancer like Mesothelioma.

Though ancient civilisations that had been using asbestos thousands of years ago were aware of its damaging effects, it took a long time for people to realise the damage they were doing to themselves in the 20th century. While some began to notice the damage asbestos was causing to people, their concerns fell on deaf ears. The asbestos industry was hugely profitable, and there wasn't sufficient evidence to prove it was dangerous. Part of the problem is it can take up to several decades for cancers caused by asbestos fibres to manifest; the majority of cases of mesothelioma are diagnosed after the age of 65. But when it became clear of the damage it caused for so many people, asbestos was phased out in many countries in the 1970s.

54 countries have outright banned asbestos from being produced or used in any way, and several more countries have very strict regulations on the use of asbestos. Find out which countries have banned asbestos in this quiz.

We still live with asbestos' terrible effects. Many buildings still contain asbestos. Even today thousands of people die every year from illnesses caused by asbestos inhalation.

Undisturbed asbestos actually poses a low risk to human health, people are most at risk of asbestos inhalation if a building containing it is destroyed. Some sources claim that Pruitt-Igoe was replete with asbestos which was not removed before the complex was demolished.

In a similar vein to asbestos, another 'miracle substance' that was commonplace in the early 20th century would also go on to wreak untold havoc. Its name is Radium.

Radium:

Radium was first discovered by Pierre and Marie Curie in 1898. It is a naturally occurring element -atomic number 88- and is an alkaline-earth metal along with Calcium and Magnesium.

This fabulous new substance attracted a lot of attention. It was called the 'magic material', as it glows in the dark, and was believed to emit a healing energy. Thus corporations were keen to harness its commercial potential, and radium began to feature in all kinds of products, including clothes, radium chocolate, and even toothpaste. Radium health spas where people could bathe in radium infused water also became popular.

Glow-in-the-dark clocks and watches also became super popular, with their hands illuminated by radium, people could tell what time it was in the dark.

Like asbestos, radium was considered a wonder material. Also like asbestos, radium can be extremely dangerous, tragically unbeknownst at the time.

The Curies were exposed to a lot of radium in their research, Marie Curie died from radium poisoning, and it is believed Pierre Curie would also have eventually, had he not been killed in a road accident.

Radioactivity was discovered by Henri Becquerel in 1896, only two years before the Curies discovered radium, so it wasn't very well understood. Radium emits alpha radiation, a form of radiation that doesn't necessarily harm you through touch. Alpha radiation is quite weak, and can be blocked by thin barriers such as paper. However, ingesting radium is much more harmful. Radium's half-life (how long is emits radiation for) is quite long. Different radioactive elements have different half-lives, ranging from a few seconds to many decades. The half-life of an element can also vary in different isotopes; in one radium isotope the half-life is about 11 days, while in another the half-life lasts nearly 1,600 years.

As an alkaline-earth metal, radium has chemical properties similar to calcium, and as such the human body tends to absorb it into the bones, where its alpha radiation then causes damage to the bone marrow. Bone marrow is where new red blood cells are manufactured, and the inability to make new blood cells (aplastic anaemia) is exactly what killed Marie Curie. Pierre Curie died in a road accident, but it is believed that if he hadn't, he would have eventually suffered the same death as his wife from radium poisoning. Some of their research notes and even their own corpses had to be sealed in lead-lined containers as they are so heavily irradiated.

For many people the deadly effects of radium were realised only too late. The case of the Radium Girls was a major event that brought the dangers of radium to public attention. Many women worked in factories where they painted radium onto the hands of the popular glow-in-the-dark clocks, and were told the radium paint they used was harmless. Some ended up inadvertently ingesting the paint, which over time caused them radiation sickness, and nasty cases of damage to their bones, particularly in their faces and jaws. So they sued their employer, the United States Radium Corporation. Doctors were pressurized to diagnose the women with syphilis, which had some similar symptoms to radium poisoning, but the Radium Girls' case was helped when Sabin A. Von Sochocky, the inventor of the luminous radium paint they used, was himself killed by radium poisoning.

In 1928 the case was settled in favour of the women, who were awarded damages. And just as importantly the dangers of radium were brought to public attention. Their case would also play a huge role in the introduction of occupational disease labour laws in the United States.

We are now very aware of the dangers of radium, and other highly radioactive substances, and are able to exploit any practical uses they may have safely and responsibly, such as in radiotherapy.

Degradable plastic bags:

A few decades ago plastic was not particularly widely used, and disposable and single-use plastic products were unheard of. Now they are everywhere; it is estimated that over 1 trillion of them are produced every year. That's over 30,000 every second.

Paper shopping bags and drinking straws were once the norm, and despite being perfectly serviceable, they have been eclipsed by plastic versions. Plastic bags became more and more popular in the 70s and 80s.

Concerns about plastic pollution soon followed, and in the 1990s an island of plastic garbage was discovered in the Pacific Ocean. Today it is estimated to be as large as Iran.

Turtles eat jellyfish. These jellyfish sure look yummy don't they?.

Wait, let's take a closer look.

Those ain't no jellyfish! But then a turtle can't tell the difference.

In response to these concerns, supermarkets and bag manufacturers started making plastic bags which, after a few years, would disintegrate into a harmless 'biodegradable' powder. What an excellent solution!... Isn't it?

Well, no sadly not. The plastic bags don't actually biodegrade, they just degrade. What's the difference?

If something is biodegradable then it will decompose into organic compounds which assimilate into the natural carbon and nitrogen cycles. But plastic doesn't do that, it just breaks down into smaller particles, micro-plastics. As bad as plastic bags can be for the environment when they're intact, arguably the situation is made even worse when they are broken into microplastics, since the tiny plastic particles end up in our soils, water supplies, and in the food chain - and therefore ultimately end up in people.

Just like with asbestos, the true extent of the effects of micro-plastic on human health remain to be seen. But micro-plastic doesn't just affect humans, it damages whole ecosystems. And unlike asbestos use, which is strictly regulated around the world, we continue to make more and more plastic bags every day.

We really ought to learn the lessons from the cases of asbestos and radium, and phase out petroleum based plastic. Other plastic-like materials, which are made from totally organic and compostable materials, and that are suited to the exact uses we have for single-use and disposable products, are already available to us. There are plastic bags made of algae which, once your done using it, you can eat.

Which countries have banned plastic bags? Take this quiz to find out.

Edwardian makeup:

It is interesting how societal standards of attractiveness can change over time. One minute pale skin is in vogue, then suddenly tanned skin is all the rage.

Makeup can help us feel more confident and pretty, something that the cosmetics industry exploits very proficiently. But while even these days commercial pressure to meet beauty standards is high, it's really nothing as bad as it was in the Victorian/Edwardian eras where social customs were very strict. And while today we may be wary of the health effects of UV tanning beds and hair bleaching, the makeup regimes of 100 years ago were much more terrifying and unregulated.

It was primarily ladies of distinguished social standing that were the victims of the current beauty trends. The ideal Edwardian lady had pale lilywhite skin with rosy red cheeks.

They say never put on your skin what you wouldn't put in your mouth, i.e. the best skincare treatments come from natural ingredients which are as safe to eat as they are for your skin, like olive and coconut oils for example. But to achieve the desired pale skin and rosy cheeks of Edwardian beauty standards, many ladies would apply face creams containing very harsh chemicals like arsenic and ammonia which killed the cells in their skin, causing a bleaching effect. To further enhance the paleness of their skin they applied bright white face powder, which got its whiteness from toxic compounds containing lead.

After that a rouge would then be used to get lovely rosy cheeks, and certain kinds of rouge contained equally toxic materials such as mercury.

And then another dangerous treatment was the use of eyedrops to cause the pupils to dilate, another desirable look for a lady at the time, and one chemical that could create that effect came from extracts of Belladonna, which also goes by the name Deadly Nightshade.

So we have:

One recipe for disaster.

Firstly the chemicals in the face cream would cause severe and permanent damage to the skin, worsened by the lead based face powder, and then compounded even further by the mercury based rouge. These heavy metals are particularly toxic to the nervous system and the brain, so frequently applying them lavishly to the face meant many Edwardian ladies suffered life-long health problems, and some were even driven mad due to the neurological damage they suffered. The Belladonna they used in their eyes contained very nasty toxins such as atropine, would do heavy damage to their corneas. In some cases the cornea would even fall out and result in blindness.

Spare a thought for the thousands of ladies who unwittingly inflicted severe harm onto themselves, all in the name of trying to meet Edwardian beauty standards.

Leaded petrol:

Lead is a very interesting metal which has many practical uses, if you know what you're doing with it. But as we've just established, if not used carefully lead can be very damaging to the body. Sadly it took a long time for us to realise this, and in the interim, people have used lead very liberally; the Romans used to boil wine in pots made of lead, Edwardian ladies covered their faces with lead based powders, and it was once widely used in fuel for vehicles, all to disastrous effect.

Tetraethyl lead, or TEL, is a compound discovered in the 19th century. It is a colourless liquid with a pleasant smell.

In 1921 Thomas Midgley Jr., while working for General Motors, discovered the TEL enhanced gasoline. When mixed with gasoline it both improved the gasoline's performance and made it last longer. General Motors patented TEL as an efficient fuel additive, and marketed it as 'Ethyl', being careful to exclude the word 'lead' from its name. It was soon in widespread use.

As if car fumes weren't bad enough to begin with, now they were spewing out lead too.

The truly sad thing about leaded petrol is that many people were already aware of the toxicity of lead, and the damaging effects of this new fuel additive was already visibly causing health problems within the first few years of its widespread use. Over several decades numerous scientists worked hard to show that leaded gasoline was not only seriously polluting the environment but harming people as well. One study linked poor school performance in children with exposure to TEL.

Right from the start numerous scientists warned of the dangers of TEL to public health, but it wasn't until the 1970s that governments started to phase out leaded gasoline. And even then it took until the late 1990s for most countries to ban its use. Now leaded gasoline is still legal in only a few countries, and even among them it is only widely used as a fuel for vehicles in three countries.

Take this quiz to find out where it is still legal.

What do all these examples have in common?

In most of these particular cases the damage caused by these seemingly brilliant innovations wasn't realised until after it had already been done, and therefore was too late to remedy much of the harm that thousands suffered as a result.

In some of these cases the responses to the alarm bells raised about their dangers were delayed due to pushback from manufacturers and big corporations, since (very lamentably) profits were often put before peoples' health.

Most of these examples were of innovations that appeared at the turn of the 20th century, with the advent of industrialisation and of mass production, in that precarious era when we were avidly embracing these brilliant and supposedly life-improving materials, while still not being fully aware of all of their damaging effects.

What positives can be drawn from these examples? For one thing we now know the dangers of certain materials, and furthermore we are much more inclined to take risk assessments on any new discoveries and innovations. Equally some of the most valuable lessons learnt from these cases have been crucial in the implementation of laws to protect people and the environment. So the next time you are inclined to complain about health and safety regulations, just think about what some people went through to give us the basic protections many enjoy today!

One more thing that a few of these cases have in common is that their damaging effects are still being felt by many today, even decades after they were phased out. Which begs the question; what other things that we have embraced in the past are yet to be shown to have caused us more harm than good?