In a Cold War-era experiment, men in protective suits in the mid-1950s pumped a cloudy substance outside the giant Pruitt-Igoe apartment complex. Many residents at the time associated the fogging with mosquito control efforts. It wasn’t until 40 years later that the government revealed that the workers had sprayed zinc cadmium sulfide, a potential carcinogen around the complex and in other St. Louis places as well.
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