Curing Ulcers - Damn the Experts

The Courage to say what's correct when everyone says you're wrong

Remember when we were growing up and we’d hear things like “Better calm down, you’re gonna give yourself an ulcer!” It was thought back then that stress and spicy food caused ulcers.

Around 1979, Dr. Robin Warren and Barry Marshall started noticing these spiral-shaped bacteria while doing stomach biopsies of patients with gastritis.

Then a crazy thing happened: The Easter Breakthrough.

In 1982, a lab technician accidentally left their samples in the incubator for five days over the Easter holiday instead of the two-day standard at the time. This mistake allowed enough time for the H. pylori colonies to grow and appear.

By 1983, Marshall had isolated the bacteria and found that it was present in 100% of the patients they tested who had ulcers.

They had discovered the cause of ulcers.

They presented their findings at a conference in Brussels. Their hope was that they had discovered a cure for an extremely painful disease that sentenced patients to a lifetime of eating bland foods and antacid pills.

Marshall presented his findings at the conference in Brussels and the crowd celebrated his massive accomplishment. He received a standing ovation, he was Time’s Person of the Year, millions of patients around the globe were cured, and Marshall was celebrated as a hero.

Wait, I’m sorry, I got that wrong.

The medical community viciously attacked him, saying that he was a “young nobody from Perth” who had no reputation, and senior doctors even called his theory “reckless and preposterous.” They said the stomach is a sterile environment and that no bacteria could survive in that acidic environment.

Another group within the medical establishment believed that almost all diseases were “repressed emotional responses.” They said: “The critical factor in the development of ulcers is the frustration associated with the wish to receive love.”

They literally thought ulcers were caused by people not getting enough love.

Marshall was devastated, frustrated, and a bit angry that no one was listening to him, looking at the evidence, or—more importantly—helping the patients.

Marshall attempted to perform studies to prove his theory, but the medical establishment kept throwing up roadblocks. In order to run a human test, he had to reproduce the results in animals first, but that didn’t work in this case.

So what did he do? He tested it on the “only ethical subject”: himself.

In 1984, Marshall took the bacteria from an infected patient and drank it himself!

After three days, he developed nausea and halitosis (extreme bad breath) because the bacteria neutralized his stomach acid. By day eight, an endoscopy showed massive stomach inflammation and colonies of the bacteria H. pylori.

By day 10, the endoscopy found a raw, red, inflamed stomach lining. By day 14, Marshall began to fear for his health and started a therapy of antibiotics and bismuth.

Marshall had just proven that H. pylori caused gastritis, and gastritis eventually causes ulcers.

But even after the experiment, the medical establishment wouldn’t surrender or change course!

In 1985, he successfully published his self-experiment in the Medical Journal of Australia. But it was largely ignored.

For a decade, ulcer victims had started talking about an “underground cure” called “the Marshall Treatment.” This was basically antibiotics.

It wasn’t for another full decade (1994) until the National Institutes of Health officially stated that most ulcers were caused by H. pylori and should be treated with antibiotics.

This change effectively killed the billion-dollar market for long-term antacid maintenance, which Marshall later called “the ultimate satisfaction.”

And it wasn’t for another decade until Marshall received the Nobel Prize in 2005.

Today, about half of the decline in stomach cancer is attributed to Marshall’s discovery.

Marshall’s discovery was ignored for a decade. What was the impact of that? Let’s look at some numbers.

At that time, about 700,000 people died from stomach cancer per year. Let’s say just a modest 25% of those could be saved by Marshall’s solution of “Screen and Treat” with antibiotics.

That means that at least 1,000,000 to 2,000,000 people may have been saved if Marshall’s discovery had been recognized earlier.

Thankfully, in 2005, Marshall and his colleague Robin Warren were awarded the Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine.

Because of Marshall and Warren’s work, the World Health Organization (WHO) now classifies H. pylori as a carcinogen. This discovery also sparked the first “antibiotic cure” for a cancer. A rare type of stomach tumor called MALT lymphoma can often be completely cured just by taking antibiotics to kill the bacteria.

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I love this story because it’s a perfect case study in how the “experts” can be dead wrong for decades. It’s a classic case of “appeal to authority,” where “experts” dismissed the correct answer, not because of fundamental truth, but only because Marshall was not a part of their Tribe. He wasn’t an “expert”.

It’s a reminder that people that change the world and make massive discoveries are often considered heretics, stupid, evil, or worse.

The establishment chose to believe ulcers were caused by a “lack of love” rather than a bacteria because their dogma was profitable and comfortable.

It is another reminder that the system isn’t built to find the truth. It is built to protect itself and if you want to do something great or different, it could take you decades of being called a monster before anyone ever believes you. Just ask Alan Turing or Galileo.

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I’m very sorry for the lack of updates lately. Santa brought our 7 year old a ATV 4-wheeler for Christmas and I flipped it and broke 3 ribs. I’m recovering now but it was a rough patch there. Thank you for your patience!