What's insane is that seemingly intelligent people with zero medical training or research experience somehow think they have the capability to determine drug sa

What's insane is that seemingly intelligent people with zero medical training or research experience somehow think they have the capability to determine drug safety or whether a disease exists and merits treatment with pharmacotherapy. > So, any potential "expert" that would disagree with them was selected out so as to not become an expert in the first place. Anyone with some form of training or practical experience in an academic biomedical field (clinical or research) and has knowledge of how to synthesize and analyze evidence in order to make logical arguments may be considered a relevant expert, this is a much larger group than psychiatrists and is how FDA committees are constructed. Most notably this includes (and is not limited to) other physicians and providers, pharmacologists, pathologists, physiologists and epidemiologists. > I guess if I have a point it's that I don't think shouting "trust the science" or "trust the experts" and beating one's chest is contributing much to the conversation. One should absolutely "trust the experts" when it comes to determining safety of a therapeutic or definition of a disease. These are determined by scientific processes and debate based on evidence and not philosophical thoughts and feelings. Given how complex modern life is one has to defer to experts and regulators on many things beyond medicine. Some other examples: motor vehicles, aviation, building codes, financial institutions and encryption. > I'd also say that the more I've learned about psychiatry (including as a customer) the lower the opinion I have of it. The limitations in psychiatric medicine and research are widely acknowledged and not a novel insight that the FDA and medical community are ignorant of as many commenters here seem to believe.