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I am absolutely convinced that sometime in the future the ads that drug companies are producing to encourage people to pursue eating unhealthy because they can take a pill to relieve their symptoms will be viewed as evil as tobacco companies advertising cigarettes. This might be 20 or more years, but it is absolutely inevitable. Tagamet has a new campaign that suggests shifting the focus of heartburn medications from treating unintentional excess to providing a prophylactic for customers whose excess is very intentional indeed. There are far better natural solutions for heartburn.
This reprehensible and despicable attitude of drug companies to focus on profits at the expense of people's health is one of the driving forces that keeps me pushing to shift the fatally flawed traditional paradigm's reliance on drugs and surgery.
Tagamet is an H2 blocker and relatively safe compared to the very potent proton pump inhibitors like Prilosec and Nexium. I believe their approach is even more despicable. These pills cost about $4 for each daily pill, or $1,500 a year and are very effective at relieving symptoms but do absolutely nothing about solving the cause of the problem. Even worse is that they develop a physiologic addiction or dependency that makes it virtually impossible to stop taking them without having even worse symptoms than prior to taking them. For further details please review the revealing story I posted on Nexium two years ago
New York Times June 10, 2004