The FDA finally did the right thing in December 2014 by requiring the manufacturers of
Proton pump inhibitors (PPI's), such as Prilosec, Prevacid and Nexium to list this warning on their labels:
"Cyanocobalamin (vitamin B-12) Deficiency: Daily long-term use (e.g., longer than 3 years) may lead to malabsorption or a deficiency of cyanocobalamin"
The only problem with this statement is that it's impossible to have a deficiency of cyanocobalamin because, well..... it doesn't normally occur in the human body! (1)
Mind you, the wheels worked slowly to start with. Public Citizen, a research-based advocacy group, made a formal request to the FDA on August 23, 2011 to "immediately add black box warnings and other safety information concerning several severe risks to the product labels of all proton pump inhibitors (PPIs)" for a long list of problems associated with PPI's, including Vitamin B12 Deficiency. (2). They followed that up with a civil suit on 4-30-14 (3).
The FDA finally took action in December, 2014, but the new labels came out referencing the new disease: "Cyanocobalamin Deficiency". How and why did this happen? Hard to say, but it will probably take another letter and lawsuit from Public Citizen and 20 years to get it corrected. In the meantime, don't be too surprised if you don't see a plethora of new pharmaceutical drugs to fight this new, non-existent, disease, "Cyanocobalamin Deficiency"!
(1) (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cyanocobalamin)(https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/3046314)
(2) (http://www.citizen.org/documents/1964.pdf)
(3) http://www.citizen.org/documents/Public-Citizen-FDA-PPI-Petition-Complaint.pdf
Just when you think ''that couldn't even be made up'' They go & do it again...