I find it hard to be too critical with people who are skeptical of modern medical science, given we know the Replication Crisis [0] has yet to be resolved. Between the human brain's chronic inability to parse statistics properly and the incredible amount of money to be made in solutions that make chronic conditions or deadly diseases go away, I do my best to be tolerant.
Ironically, another post that's currently sitting on the HNews frontpage has some fun ads from the 60s encouraging women to slam sugar before lunch so they don't eat as much. I'm sure this advice was being peddled alongside physicians who not only smoked in their patient rooms, but encouraged smoking for it's weight loss side-effect.
Separating the human from science is unfathomably difficult. Humans are cruel, selfish and misguided about many things. Assuming because something was published in JAMA or NEJM by someone who spent 6 years in a PhD program at an accredited university, that it's the gospel truth should be discouraged. People should ask questions and think for themselves. And as a result, some people will make horrible decisions and some may even die directly from those decisions or from the long term consequences. But then again, there were probably plenty of doctors in the 60s who had a gut feeling about the safety of smoking and ended up dying of some horrible and preventable cancer. But what the hell, they had a medical degree, so they probably knew better than everyone else.
[0] https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Replication_crisis
Edited to add missing link