[RHSeeger]

> until there was sufficient data to definitively prove them wrong

Yes, and that's precisely how good analysis and decision making is supposed to work. You're supposed to change your mind when the information you based your decision on changes. That's a _good_ thing.

For any given discussion, given enough people, there will always be a set of people that believe each of the possible things that _can_ be believed. We have people that believe the world is flat. However, the fact that _some_ of those people happened to believe what turned out to be true when the set of input information changed... doesn't make them smarted than everyone else. Unless they were basing their conclusions on a known and defensible set of arguments... it just makes them randomly lucky. You can have a watch to tell time... then ignore it and say it's always 12pm. When it happens to get to 12pm, you'll be right. But you'll still be stupid.

[defaultprimate]

lol no, the burden of proof for efficacy and safety is on those pushing the idea. It's perfectly reasonable to reject something based on a lack of, or questionable, empirical evidence.

There's nothing stupid about rejecting "expert consensus" when the data backing the experts doesn't exist.