It's certainly easy to find examples of profit trumping safety, if that's what you're after.
But GP is correct that the overall balance is much more towards safety today than (say) 100 years ago. It's not really technological advances that sets how many people die to build a skyscraper (and medicine is equally helpless now as then). How many people die in factory fires etc. isn't about the owners being more or less greedy now, it's about whether the fire safety inspector has teeth, which is a political choice.
And in a way a rational choice, too. Every such choice amounts in some way to putting a value on a life, and now that we are much wealthier, this implicit value is much higher.
But GP is correct that the overall balance is much more towards safety today than (say) 100 years ago. It's not really technological advances that sets how many people die to build a skyscraper (and medicine is equally helpless now as then). How many people die in factory fires etc. isn't about the owners being more or less greedy now, it's about whether the fire safety inspector has teeth, which is a political choice.
And in a way a rational choice, too. Every such choice amounts in some way to putting a value on a life, and now that we are much wealthier, this implicit value is much higher.