There's differece of opinion with alcohol. One school of jurisprudence goes by the ruling that it's the fermentation part that makes it haram, so synthetically made ethanol in a lab isn't haram if it's not used in levels that intoxicate, whereas another school says it's the actual intoxicating property of the chemical that's haram so you can't use it unless it's for necessary medical reasons and there's no alternative. I don't know what the other two schools say.

Ooh I actually have a cool example about last "shariah is just a law" part.

Islam is very much flexible in topic of health and you are allowed to use haram items like pork or alcohol products in medicine if no other options available.

Here is the cool part, even tho culturally there is still a lot of pushback and problems, gender dysphoria still falls under "health" and therefore treatments are protected under shariah.

Hence wikipedia articles like Transgender Rights in Iran have very surprising starts.