I think any topic comes with risks, and sensitive ones come with more risks. If you're not taking risks, then are you really creating anything at all? I'd say that authors should do their research, in general, but especially so with sensitive topics. It's not even just because you want to have a "good take," but you'd at the very least want to be portraying the themes you're engaging with in a way that you would if you truly understood them. The only way to understand would be through experience or research. Sometimes, often actually, writers purposely subvert expectations with how to they deal with sensitive topics, which if planned, will usually come off much better than any clumsy and accidental portrayal.
I think the real mistake that authors often make is in adding dark themes without considering if they actually need to be added. If you add a dark topic and don't put even a little effort into making it substantially relevant to the narrative, then you can't exactly be surprised if that puts people off.
