I apologize for opening up with an adhom. Let me start over because this discussion is important to me, even if I'm wrong:
I understand the empirical evidence shows that RU is safe, and I'm aware of everything you've posted, however I did get seriously ill, and so have others. We have all considered the possibility of anxiety/nocebo, but the effects were severe and in some of our cases completely by surprise. Even of it wasn't SOLELY the fault of RU, this is definitely a phenomena that is going on and needs to be recognized.
I'm willing to accept this theory because most of the people getting sides have been in the last 2-3 years. Further back than that there was only one person claiming to have had heart failure from RU. Another factor to consider is that we have a much larger group of people taking RU than before.
I do believe concerns like this. Not everything out there has the funding to provide sufficient amounts of truly independent studies. In a world full of corruption in every sector, including the hairloss industry, lack of studies doesn't mean lack of truth or evidence. If there are lots of people online voicing their opinions about something being bad/harmful to them, it is something to be concerned about and take caution.
For example, when you buy a product online, most people look at the reviews. It's very easy to have new accounts or bots give false reviews or pay people to write positive reviews, in this day and age that is a form of marketing.
Most sane people wouldn't buy a product if there's a reasonable amount of people complaining about the product or service, the same concept can be used for the medical field.
Often times, it's the patients or users or medications that are the ones to find side effects that were understated or unknown after the initial studies were done.
I'm not saying RU or even Finasteride doesn't work for everyone because I know it does work for some people, but there's also a lot more people that it doesn't work for or that get sides that companies don't want us to know about, which is why anecdotal evidence like people complaining online is something to take note of.
It's important to know how to be an independent thinker and not following like sheep based on the only available information like current studies out there, etc.