You should do whatever the "experts" advise. They are benevolent gods from the state who can't be bought off

What is the point of this?

Experts don't know everything, they make mistakes and they don't always acknowledge them. Yet sometimes they're right, too.
It's tough for laypeople, especially families of patients to make decisions when they have little knwoledge about health issues, sometimes they just feel some treatment is not right, but it's very guilt-inducing for the family to go against a medical procedure.
Here though, it's more about the utter lack of conscience of businesses lying through their teeth to make money.

You're using something from the 50s to make a point.

A lot of doctors did smoke up until medical research proved it to be so harmful in many ways. A handful of doctors still smoke. They are playing the odds, a lot like playing Russian Roulette.