How is it depressing? If we waited for scientist's to fully understand the outcomes of their experiments prior to experimenting we’d still be living in caves. As long as the experimentation happens at a small enough scale, the “worst case” scenario is limited. What’s depressing is when things are scaled up in spite of an established body of evidence that such things are harmful.
Humans have functioned like this as far back as there are records. There's been weird unfounded health crazes for centuries. In the 1920s health spas were putting radon rocks in their pools because radiation was the new health craze.