If you knew nothing about smoking and read a long rant on smoking's health effects, would you dismiss it as easily as you dismissed this one? Probably yes -- but you would be deadly wrong.
It's interesting to me how people, although saying they know nothing about a subject, they still have opinions about what's true or false on that subject. What can one say about something they know nothing about except: I don't know. Maybe: "this opinion (GP's) seems aggressive, is it warranted? I don't know". Just say: I don't know.
> The above makes it sound like people are dropping like flies left and right. There must be a reason why it's still on the market and used widely.
Smoking was dropping people like flies left and right. And indeed there was a reason why it was still on the market and used widely.