despite saying they're "harmful", they've been everywhere for all these decades that a lot of other measures of quality of life have been increasing?
Might be unrelated (or not), but cancer rates have been exploding the last decades. Example via Google-Fu:
Cancer cases in under-50s worldwide up nearly 80% in three decades, study finds
https://www.theguardian.com/society/2023/sep/05/cancer-cases...