> have you heard of lead additives to gasoline? CFCs? Asbestos? Smoking? History is littered with complete failures of governments to appropriately regulate new technology

Most of those problems have been solved or at least been reduced by regulation. Regulators however aren't all knowing gods and one finds out about risks and problems only later, but except for smoking regulators have covered those aspects (and anti-smoking laws become stricter, generally, depending on country, regularly, but it's a cultural habit older than most states ...)