I well remember reading long ago about the Fore people (more women than men, due to their roles) who suffered from fatal neurodegenerative kuru due to their beliefs about helping their loved ones to the afterlife. The Fore's kuru was recognized as similar to Creutzfeldt–Jakob disease, hence the discovery of prions. Younger readers will remember the panic around "mad cow disease"
My shaky memory is that scientists who learned about prions paved the way to discover mis-folded proteins in Alzheimer's. Sixty years later I'm taking a BACE-1 inhibitor (or placebo) which may keep my brain's protein's nicely formed for a few more years. In that spirit, I'm not opting for any grass-fed, organic lamb brains!
Your post prompted me to find this book, which will remind me that the subjects of research and the researchers themselves may both benefit and suffer in the quest for knowledge. The Collectors of Lost Souls: Turning Kuru Scientists into Whitemen, by Warwick Anderson.
To quote (and slightly amend) Theodore Parker, a Transcendentalist, minister, abolitionist and 1853 author of MLK's famous quote:
I do not pretend to understand the moral [and scientific] universe, the arc is a long one, my eye reaches but little ways. I cannot calculate the curve and complete the figure by the experience of sight; I can divine it by conscience. But from what I see I am sure it bends towards justice [and interconnectedness among all peoples].