Kinda like smokers claiming their grandparents smoked two packs a day and lived to the ripe old age of 70. That certainly proves it's safe for all of us to smoke.....right?
For ALL of us? no, I'd say not. But the other side of the coin should be, but isn't equally valued.
There are people who never smoked, and get cancer. There are people who smoked and never got cancer. Grandfather smoked, died at 96, from renal failure, Mother didn't smoke, died at 52, from congestive heart failure. Dad smoked, died two weeks before his 67th birthday, from "complications due to diabetes".
Does this prove anything? I think so, #1) everybody dies of something, and #2) different people are different, and different things happen to them, even in the exact same environmental conditions.
And I do agree that many, many things are taken to foolish extremes.
Could be one reason the expected life span of those folks was 20-30 years less than it is now
Could be, but I tend to think that lead poisoning from eating game they shot is far from the top of the list of reasons. Living under generally much harsher environmental conditions, living a more physically demanding life, not having modern nutrition, vitamins, and particularly modern medical care I think had a greater impact on longevity than lead from bullets in their diet.