Not really. There was a randomized controlled trial of more than thirty thousand people backing the emergency approval of the Moderna vaccine. The results were

Not really. There was a randomized controlled trial of more than thirty thousand people backing the emergency approval of the Moderna vaccine. The results were obscenely strong. So no, not really. RCTs of that scale and with those strong of results build consensus pretty quickly, which is why there was (and remains) such strong consensus, which is why you feel like "trust the experts" was such a cudgel. These arguments are always fun because they resolve to, "I'm mad because I wasn't trusted with subtle arguments and statistical nuance" immediately followed by a demonstrated inability to grasp exactly those things. Of course if you really wanted the subtle arguments and statistical nuance, you could've looked at the study results themselves. But you almost certainly didn't and most people wouldn't, ergo "trust the experts" who do those things is often very reasonable advice.