I think what they said early was their was no evidence they worked outside of a medical setting (but not that there was evidence they didn't).

But we dont wait on randomly controlled trials in a different airport to use a parachute, and can use common sense reasoning in deciding yes to pull the cord if we find ourselves falling out of a plane instead of using setting dependent empiricism.

There could be some counterintuitive reason it is dangerous outside of medical settings but they never gave anything plausible and should have just left it at we need to conserve them for more exposed people in medical settings.