Former Zantac Users Class Action Lawsuits Can Go To Trial Seeking Payment For Ongoing Medical Testing

Class-action lawsuits focus on the reimbursement of the costs of ongoing medical monitoring for cancer and other diseases Zantac may have caused

Wednesday, October 13, 2021 - Reuters reports that more than 100,000 individuals have signed up with Zantac cancer lawyers to file suit against Sanofi, the maker of Zantac, and others. Plaintiffs have been diagnosed with stomach, bladder, esophagus, colon, prostate, or other forms of cancer, which they blame on using heartburn and acid reflux medicine. 800 actual complaints seeking substantial lump-sum monetary awards have been consolidated in West Palm Beach, Florida with Federal judge Robin Rosenberg presiding. Multidistrict litigation saves the courts time and money like the Zantac case when thousands of plaintiffs allege similar injuries from taking the same drug or using the same medical device. MDL allows the judge time to interview expert medical witnesses from both sides to see which ones are the most credible and can testify in upcoming trials. Zantac cancer lawsuits allege that ranitidine, the generic name for Zantac, degrades when exposed to high temperatures into N-nitrosodimethylamine (NDMA), a deadly carcinogen. Plaintiffs took Zantac heartburn medicine regularly and for years and allegedly developed one form of cancer or another.

Judge Rosenberg ruled the other day that class action lawsuits representing thousands of former Zantac users may go forward to seek reimbursement for the cost of the medicine and also reimbursement of future medical expenses. The class-action lawsuits focus on the reimbursement of the costs of ongoing medical monitoring for cancer and other diseases Zantac may have caused. More than 15 million Americans were taking Zantac when ranitidine was recalled by the FDA on April 1, 2020. Sanofi could be on the hook for billions in ongoing costs over more than a decade if the class action succeeds. Most of the types of cancer listed above have a latency period of ten years or more before the symptoms become apparent. Thousands of people could get a positive heartburn medicine cancer diagnosis each year for many years into the future. According to Reuters, defendants in the class action lawsuits are "Sanofi, GlaxoSmithKline, Boehringer Ingelheim, and Pfizer Inc, which sold Zantac products in the years before widespread recalls of the drug began in 2019."

At issue is whether or not taking Zantac regularly for more than a year caused a person to develop cancer. Several years ago, online prescription drug testing pharmacy Valisure tested Zantac and found highly-elevated levels of NDMA, some millions of times more than the amount the FDA deemed safe in a drug that could be taken every day. The FDA thinks that 96 nanograms per tablet of Zantac is a safe amount and Zantac has been found to have much more than that. Valisure claims that ranitidine is an inherently unstable molecule and breaks down to become NDMA when heated to a certain temperature. The FDA feared that unsafe temperatures could occur during transportation or storage of the Zantac tables and thus hesitantly issued the recall. Defenders of Zantac claim that super-high levels of NDMA are in processed meats, cheeses, beer, wine, and other foods we eat regularly and wonder why ranitidine is being singled out. Others think that Valisure's tests heated ranitidine to temperatures that could have caused the NDMA spike.

sources:

https://www.reuters.com/legal/litigation/sanofi-gsk-cant-escape-zantac-proposed-class-actions-judge-rules-2021-10-07/">

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Lawyers for Zantac Heartburn Medicine Lawsuits

OnderLaw, LLC is a St. Louis personal injury law firm handling serious injury and death claims across the country. Its mission is the pursuit of justice, no matter how complex the case or strenuous the effort. The Onder Law Firm has represented clients throughout the United States in pharmaceutical and medical device litigation such as Pradaxa, Lexapro and Yasmin/Yaz, where the firm's attorneys held significant leadership roles in the litigation, as well as Actos, DePuy, Risperdal and others. The Onder Law Firm has won more than $300 million in four talcum powder ovarian cancer lawsuits in St. Louis. Law firms throughout the nation often seek its experience and expertise on complex litigation.