Medical doctors are not scientists, they follow and teach cookbooks and "best practices". That is my not so humble opinion.
Faculty of medical schools are frequently MDs who conduct basic and clinical research. Some of the top biochemists, cell biologists, pharmacologists, happen to hold MDs, and some in addition hold PhDs. MDs have certianly won their share of Nobel prizes, and not just in medicine but in areas like chemistry as well. You can't conduct clinical or medical research of any significance and reliability without being an excellent scientsit. Judging by degree alone is not a basis of determining competency in science. I've seen plenty of faculty in graduate schools in biology and chemistry who are more administrators and never completed any research that was of any significance whatsoever. Let's remember PHE is made up of many MDs and we accept their words as scientists. However, there's more to it so please bear with the multiparts to this post.
It's a very good article, and there's no point taking specific quotes out to make this point. But
@CMD-Ky it does bear on your point above.
As an aside, when the NYS Public Board of whatever voted to support Cuomo this week, one of it's members, Glenn Martin, MD of Mt. Sinai/Icahn School of Medicine here in NY flat out voted no as "this was not in any way a public health emergency" . Sinai is a pretty decent medical school, research, and medical center, and he holds a nice senior faulty position.
The folks in the CBS story were out of NYU Medical Center and School of Medicine as well as the school of public health policy. It is generally rated as a top tier medical school and medical center in the US. It conducts research with a budget in excess of $350 Million dollars a year (well, 2017, don't have anything newer).
Now, nothing against the folks in W. Virginia, but it's not exactly a top tier medical school known for outstanding research and faculty. We need to remember a degree alone is not indicative of skill or knowledge. I'ts like the old joke, "What do you call the person who graduated last in their medical school class at the lowest rated medical school in the country? Doctor". Certainly this individual referring to PG and VG a petroleum products kinda proves the point.
Affiliations with institutions are important when weighing an opinion or theory offered. Opinion shopping has and is a popular activity by both the press, as there's always someone out there you can quote for a more "balanced and objective story", as well as attorneys in tort cases. You can always find someone with a degree who will testify in support of your client and rebut the opinion of the expert of the opposing party's.
And the anti guy, West Virginia University School of Medicine associate professor Mark Olfert, is incompetent.
"It's something in the base solution," he said. "The base solution is made up of propylene glycol and vegetable glycerin. These are oils. Petroleum."
How the heck is this guy any kind of professor at a school of Medicine without the most basic knowledge of organic chemistry? PG and VG are not oils, they are sugar alcohols! Moreover, VG is not made from petroleum.
See above.