I prescribe heartburn medicines every day. There’s a gaggle of them now – Prilosec, Nexium, Prevacid, Protonix – to name a few. As far as experts know, their primary effect is to reduce the production of stomach acid. This is why they are so effective at putting out your heartburn fire. In simple terms: no acid, no heartburn. I am quite sure that well-meaning physicians like myself do not understand or will ever know all of the unintended effects of tampering with a digestive process that took a few million years or so to evolve. Are we so arrogant that we believe that these drugs only target gastric acid production? They are absorbed into the blood stream and course through every organ of the body. Is it not conceivable that certain tissues might be sensitive to these foreign invaders? Might there be unintended consequences that occur far downstream well beyond our horizon similar to a butterfly effect. Do we really think that gastric acid is present just
MD Whistleblower presents vignettes and commentaries on the medical profession. We peek 'behind the medical curtain' and deliver candor and controversy in every post.