Being highly published is a game of academic medicine. It reflects your ability to network socially more often than it reflects actual scientific acumen or productivity. I have my name on papers and abstracts that I have barely even read. Those are still "my publications." As a matter of fact, for my COVID review paper where I am list as second author, ostensibly to reflect my significant contributions to the manuscript, I wrote I think about 3 paragraphs.
Still let's accept for the moment that there is no reason that that he cannot walk and chew gum at the same time. Kary Mullis, nobel laureate who invented PCR, went to his grave convinced that HIV does not cause AIDS. This is on the same level as believing the earth is flat. Ironic given that he invented the technology used to confirm HIV infection. Furthermore, in a far less extreme example, the latitude granted by uncertainty is often used by physicians to "go with their gut" despite an uphill gradient of evidence.
What is hard for most people to understand about the academic medical world is that there are Pubmed-indexed, peer-reviewed articles spanning both the benchtop laboratory sciences to clinical research that can support literally any argument you could possibly make. Turmeric extract preventing molecular senescence? Here
you go. Endogenous anti microbial peptides as precipitants of acute heart failure? Here's your
huckleberry. Alcohol in moderation prevents cancer?
Boom. Alcohol in moderation causes cancer? Right
here.
What is difficult to appreciate is that this ceaseless back and forth of opinions that seem completely at odds with one another is par for the course in the biomedical research world. I also sympathize with the fact that it is hard to decide "which expert" to believe as you are not wrong to say that McCullough has a strong resumé. However, what separates the wheat from the chaff ends up being the global consensus. The global consensus is quite overwhelming regarding plaquenil and vaccination for COVID-19.
The mRNA COVID vaccines are among the most well studied medical interventions out there. The evidence is pretty overwhelming in their favor, both in terms of their safety profile and their efficacy. Are they bullet proof in the prevention of disease? Of course not. Is there an extremely un-subtle difference in the % of COVID ICU patients who are vaccinated and who are not? Absolutely.
Because of the highly politicized nature of COVID-19 there are strangely potent emotional investments by the public in treatment X or policy Y in the prevention of COVID-19. Because there is evidence to support nearly every possible position, people like McCullough will always have a way to justify their opinions. Without the ability to parse that info yourself and get the 5000 foot view, you're basically beholden to the media to make that choice for you. Frankly they will never have your best interest in mind. They want your clicks. As a result I am generally pretty disgusted by the coverage of COVID-19 by the vast majority of media outlets, left and right, as they are their alarmist or conspiratorial. Neither is to your benefit.