Personal experience is the medium of life itself. I’m surprised to hear you give it so little space in the discussion. I weigh personal experience (especially multiple anecdotes from credible sources) about as high as I weigh expert opinion. Just a question: are you a young person? I’ve just seen the experts be pants on head wrong many times, and that has an effect. I’ve also specifically been burned by overconfident doctors, so add that to the important anecdote pile.

If the science doesn’t align with the anecdotes (on any topic that isn’t partisan politics), then that makes me want to investigate the science, not toss out the anecdotes.