Krw's grasp of logic is as feeble as ever. Anybody who has ever worked with mercury has heard of "Mad Hatters" and why they were mad. Not everybody ha s the benefit of a university education in chemistry and some may not be aw are that prolonged exposure to mercury may be dangerous, which is why we ha ve industrial safety regulations.
Thalidomide merely illustrated that the European pure food and drug regulat ions weren't perfect. The American system wasn't perfect either - the femal e bureaucrat who blocked it's use in the US until the feotal deformity prob lem had become obvious didn't have a particularly strong case so for doing so.
Neither example makes much of a case for no regulations. But that's krw for you.