Among the most ubiquitous food colorings in the 1970s, Red Dye No. 2 was pulled from the market in 1976 after Soviet scientists claimed that tests showed a link between the substance and cancer. Was the panic overblown? Probably no one ever succumbed to a red-dye disease. But the fact that the scare pulled red M&Ms from bags for a decade is enough for the substance to make this list.
The 50 Worst Inventions
From the zany to the dangerous to the just plain dumb, here is TIME's list (in no particular order) of some of the world's bright ideas that just didn't work out