We gleefully use all sorts of new things. Most of them turn out like sliced bread, and we stop thinking of it as "gleefully using them" and just accept them as part of our lives. It's only the odd occasion when things go wrong that confirmation bias kicks in and we think of all the other times that something hasn't worked out.

Probably a bad example. A lot more people died from malaria than would ever have been harmed by DDT.

Most people have no idea malaria was endemic in the USA as far north as New York State. The advantage of the DDT saturation was that it wiped out the disease reservoir completely, precisely because it persisted in the environment. Modern "responsible" DDT usage (treated nets, wall spraying, etc) is just breeding resistant mosquitoes.

DDT is a miracle chemical with little downsides. Whole epidemics were shut down thanks to it.