OK - not easy to explain all this unless you have had a good statistics class. But, universities draw conclusions by association with old data sets used for other studies instead of developing correct groups of patients and then running a controlled test over time (years). In a nutshell, it doesn't work - full of potential errors. As for unsafe, this was a recent personal experience I had in trying to switch from 20 mg daily Prilosec to Zantac. I tapered down to 10 mg daily Prilosec then did the switch. I was fine for 2 days then had a wild reaction including kidney pain, chills, light-headedness. Somewhat scary. So I gave up and went back to 10 mg Prilosec daily and recovered - may just stay there if I can (10 mg is probably not sufficient to control GERD/esophagitis - an experiment). I could also just go back to 20 mg Prilosec daily and let it go at that. Experiment of one! But, that's the point we are all a little different, "one test is worth 1000 expert opinions." If you have a good doc you should ask him about the stats activity above and he can clarify further. But, in any case, I suspect Prilosec is not as bad as we have been hearing in the journalistic press. Talk to your doc - they took the courses! Not to mention all their experience.