This Nobel Prize took guts

"Conventional wisdom" in the medical community has had it that most tummy ulcers are the result of stress and acidity. A whole pharmaceutical product range of anti-acid pills depended on treating the symptom, not to mention all those idiotic "executive stress" contraptions. Proving them all wrong resulted in a Nobel Prize.

The story is told well in the SMH editorial today ( http://www.smh.com.au/editorial/index.html):

"It is the archetypal science story. Researchers discover an explanation for a common ailment. They publish their findings, but so unexpected are they and so contrary to the received scientific view that they are dismissed or ignored by the medical establishment. It takes years of struggle before the findings are accepted and become medical orthodoxy. But once recognised, they open other researchers' minds to fruitful lines of investigation of similar conditions. Now the two Australian researchers have won the Nobel Prize for Physiology or Medicine.
"Doctors had believed for 50 years that the stomach was an environment so acidic that nothing could live in it. Stomach ulcers were believed to be caused by a combination of stress and acidity. Colleagues scoffed at first, and so did drug companies. The latter had built a lucrative market for expensive compounds which reduced acidity. They did not cure ulcers, but relieved their symptoms. Many sufferers would have to take them all their lives. If the doctors were right, on the other hand, the painful condition could be cured quickly with cheap antibiotics. There was thus a vested interest in maintaining the status quo. The message got through in large part due to the tenacious salesmanship of Dr Marshall, who, to prove his point, at one stage swallowed some of the bacteria and duly contracted gastritis...."

Read about this in more detail at http://www.smh.com.au/news/national/of-guts-and-glory/2005/10/04/1128191720223.html, from which came the imagery for this post.