Tri-7 Wk12, Day441 Tuesday, Tagamet & Zantac

The Great Ulcer Drug Rip-off

Perhaps the greatest scam ever perpetrated by the pharmaceutical industry upon an unsuspecting and uninformed public involves a small, spiral-shaped bacterium named Helicobacter pylori. H. pylori was discovered in April 1982 by two Australian physicians, Dr. Barry Marshall and Dr. Robbin Warren. In 1983 the two doctors proposed that the bacterium is the cause of peptic (duodenal and gastric) ulcers. Dr. Marshall even went so far as to innoculate himself with the bacterium to prove his point(1). The discovery was met by deafening silence from the medical community and created great anxiety within the pharmaceutical industry. At the time, highly profitable antacids such as cimetidine (Tagamet) and ranitidine (Zantac) were used to treat about 90 per cent of all ulcer patients and generated sales income of over $8 billion per year(1,2). Cimetidine and ranitidine do not cure ulcers, but merely mask the symptoms. The relapse rate after cessation of treatment is 50 per cent after six months and as high as 95 per cent after one year(1,3). Nevertheless, courageous medical researchers took up the challenge and it soon became apparent just how widespread and serious the H. pylori threat is. Not only did research confirm that over 90 per cent of people with peptic ulcers are infected with the bacterium, but it also became clear that H. pylori infections can be eradicated and the vast majority of ulcers cured by a one-week treatment with antibiotics and antibacterials(2,4,5,6,7,8,9).

I'm in a crunch for time so I just copied the first few paragraphs from this article. If you want to see the entire article, complete with references, just click on the title to the article. I don't think the article goes into what the discoverers of H. Pylori had to endure as a result of their discovery but, it was substantial. Since the drug companies stood to loose so much money Dr's Marshall and Warren lost their funding and eventually left the country and went to the UK where the government - who pays for the health care of their people, were more than interested in the discovery of H. pylori and NOT interested in paying out exorbitant amounts of money for treatments like Tagamet and Zantac which merely masked symptoms and never cured anything.

From what we learned in GIUG today, ulcers actually become larger and more numerous when on the old, traditional medication like Tagamet and Zantac.

So, what's the companies eventual response? Tagamet & Zantac are now off schedule which means a prescription is no longer needed and both can be bought over the counter (OTC) by millions of people who wouldn't know H. pylori from a Honda.

Granted, some people do hypersecrete acid in their stomachs but never to the extent to justify the number of scripts that were written in the past for those two drugs and probably certainly not enough to justify what's being sold today.

Maybe ...the drug companies that put out the antibiotics and antibacterials to cure the H. pylori should do a better job of informing the public and boost their bottom line ;)

Non pic today, gotta come up with 5 exam questions for dx imaging and study for a Geriatrics exam tomorrow.

oh, btw ...we could tell the same kind of story with ibuprofen. If you're curious about a reputable site to get your information then you might consider the website for the American Gastroenterolocial Association found at http://www.gastro.org/.

That's where the information in all our powerpoints came from today in class. If you go to the site, look in the upper right hand corner to use the search feature.

You can also find their facebook page at http://www.facebook.com/AmerGastroAssn?sk=app_4949752878