Fascinating.
Legend, why do you think they over-hyped it? Maybe they wanted to hoard it themselves?
I played with a thermometer when little and of course I broke it and spilled the stuff everywhere and played with it. My mother acted like the earth was ending. I didn’t die but sure was scared of it my whole life.
Why do they over-hype anything?
Control? Keep people scared over minor things? Justify their salaries?
Like with fluorescent light bulbs... Million$ are made with ‘hazardous waste ‘ disposal of them, and if you break just one in a public building the ‘toxic cleanup and disposal’ will cost thousand$. and while I wouldn’t want to be trapped in a closed space with a hundred smashed fluorescent bulbs, one or two are zero danger (other than cutting yourself on the glass) , unless maybe you snort the powder like it was cocaine and you were a 80’s guest star on Miami Vice..