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

Red Dye No. 2

Swine flu SARS Y2K Chinese lead toys DDT Red Dye No. 2 Red M&Ms Tylenol poisonings Mad cow disease War of the Worlds Scare Salmonella Scare

Laszlo Podor / Alamy

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.

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