It sounds a lot like what happened to Upton Sinclair. He wrote a (actually pretty good) novel, called "The Jungle," about a family of immigrants that gets ruined by the Chicago slaughterhouse industry. He wanted the book to stand as an indictment of capitalism, but mainly it made everyone freak out about the unsanitary conditions of their meat, which lead to some of the first food safety laws in the US. As he said afterwards, "I aimed for their hearts, and hit their stomachs."

I need to lie down for a bit.