The ethical dilemma here is probably based around “individual vs community”, but it’s hard to say when there is no knowledge of how it actually affects the “community” in the long term. The risk is that inspiring people to self-treat might cause more harm than good, but again, nobody really knows.

I’d argue that it was more of a liability refusal from the journals, disguised as ethics. It should probably noted that it’s not an outright lie though. Again it’s hard to say considering we don’t have access to the refusals.