>Further, I'm not an "expert" so even if I did challenge the data or argument, I would be dismissed for being unqualified.
Not always true. You just need to provide data (or identify an error in their data/methodology/etc.) that is convincing enough to overcome the difference in weight afforded to an expert opinion and non-expert opinion.
Extraordinary claims require extraordinary evidence. This is not to say that you are wrong, you very well could be correct, but the onus is on you to prove why your non-expert opinion should be weighted higher than hundreds of experts from various countries.
I don't think the parent is saying "what about sugar?", I think the parent is saying "why should we buy that this is consensus when consensus can be bought and paid for, as evidenced by this story about sugar and scientific consensus?"
It's always amazing to find people that are strongly "programmed" with discussion patterns. If "what about" then "dismiss claims". Nuance and critical thinking take a back seat.
This isn't whataboutism.
Whataboutism is reacting to "black lives matter" with "all lives matter".
It's a defensive argument to protect against your opponent shifting the goal posts.
However, it doesn't apply when your subject is a function of its context. In other words, whataboutism doesn't work when 2 subjects depend on each other, as they do here. This isn't "what about sugar", this is "how do we know there's no conflict of interest".
The onus is not on me to prove anything about the booster, it's on them to prove that they're worth listening to.
If you want evidence, then you probably didn't read my link because the evidence for sugar didn't emerge for years after the fact. Dealing only in absolutes is absurd.
Life is like poker, by the time you have all the information it's already too late.
And my reply would be that evidence is not always immediately apparent, but that doesn’t mean evidence doesn’t exist.
The commenter’s point was that due to other scandal, “scientific consensus” doesn’t hold the same weight it once might have held. Especially when powerful industries and Lot’s O’Money are involved. Not just sugar, but energy, tobacco, and yes…even other pharmaceuticals. TBH there seems to be a pretty direct correlation between any industry that tends to be regularly described as “Big [name of industry]” and these sort of scientific oopsies that turn up a decade or so later.
I’m fully vaccinated and boosted, but I am not going to be at all surprised if 10 years from now there is an “oops” with this too.