MICKEY KAUS: The Pepcidammerung. “Like many people, I have a problem with acid reflux. I originally took Pepcid for it, then switched to Prilosec. Then I abandoned Prilosec when a well publicized study suggested that long term use (4 years or more) increased your dementia risk by 33%. Yikes! Various attempts were made to debunk the study–see, eg, this Vox piece. And it may be that with millions of people taking Prilosec and millions being diagnosed with cognitive decline, the personality types — i.e. anxious personality types—who’ll get themselves tested for the decline are also the types who’ll take antacids. It beats me–but Vox doesn’t totally knock down the Prilosec/dementia connection. Instead, it urges people to talk with their doctors. When I told my doctor I wanted to quit Prilosec, he didn’t try to argue me out of it. He suggested I switch back to Pepcid. I said, ‘Well, if the President takes it, how bad could it be?'”