Fun fact, the inventor of leaded gasoline, Thomas Midgley Jr., also invented chloroflourocarbons (CFC's). See: https://interestingengineering.com/thomas-midgley-jr-the-man...
Nobody's disputing that his inventions were awful in the long run for humanity and the Earth but it seems a little harsh to criticise someone for lacking the gift of prophecy. As far as I'm aware we only figured out how harmful CFCs were for the environment in the 1970s for example.
""I'm not taking any chance whatever," Midgley declared. "Nor would I... doing that every day."
"Midgley was - perhaps - being a little disingenuous. He had recently spent several months in Florida, recuperating from lead poisoning." (https://www.bbc.com/news/business-40593353)
I believe after that press conference he spent several more months in Europe detoxing. High-concentration exposure was known to be dangerous ("On the Thursday of the week before Midgley's press conference, at a Standard Oil plant in New Jersey, a worker named Ernest Oelgert started hallucinating. By Friday, he was running around the laboratory, screaming in terror. On Saturday, with Oelgert dangerously unhinged, his sister called the police. He was taken to hospital and forcibly restrained. By Sunday, he was dead. Within the week, so were four of his colleagues - and 35 more were in hospital. Only 49 people worked there.") and quite a few people were concerned about long-term, low-level exposures.