I would still regard the opinions of tragedy victims highly (higher than most people, even), but yes, they are ultimately no experts, so I would not consider any of their suggestions the final answer to everything. We have actual experts for that.

My problem nowadays is that I've cynically grown to immediately question an "expert" because I fully expect someone to be influencing their opinion in one way or another. Whether that's true or not, my opinion is already colored. What I feel we really need is trust and morality, but that ain't happenin'.