Ongoing Medical Testing For Zantac Users Complicate An Already Complicated Lawsuit

Millions of Americans could be walking around with undiagnosed cancer from having used Zantac at one point in their life

Thursday, October 7, 2021 - Zantac cancer lawsuits are quickly becoming a complex series of issues as each side sues and then countersues the other. The basic claim is that Zantac ranitidine, once the world's best-selling heartburn and acid reflux medicine, degrades into NDMA, a known carcinogen. People who used Zantac every day for years have been diagnosed with stomach, bladder, esophagus, colon, and prostate cancer allegedly as a result. On another front, generic makers of ranitidine that were named co-defendants with Sanofi and others in thousands of Zantac ranitidine lawsuits, have been absolved of responsibility because certain state laws prohibited the generic drug companies from warning the public of the dangers or changing the formula of the drug. If that was not enough, those same generic ranitidine manufacturers have filed suit and seek damages from the Zantac plaintiffs suing Sanofi, the maker of Zantac, for the costs of having to defend themselves. The generic manufacturers seek that the judge considers assigning joint and several liabilities to the Zantac plaintiffs meaning that if some of the plaintiffs drop their lawsuits, those that remain will have to foot a greater percentage and dollar amount of the total bill. That matter is unresolved and could shrink the current heartburn medicine cancer plaintiff pool considerably and also prevent future lawsuits from being filed. Finally, at least for the time being, another front has been opened where class-action lawsuits that seek financing for Zantac plaintiff's ongoing medical monitoring will be allowed to proceed to trial. Cancer has a potential latency period of ten years or more before the symptoms of the disease become painfully obvious. More than 15 million people were taking Zantac before it was recalled in April of 2020 due to fears that ranitidine, the active ingredient in Zantac, is inherently unstable and degrades to form N-nitrosodimethylamine (NDMA) a known carcinogen. Should the plaintiffs in the class action prevail, the cost of ongoing medical monitoring for such a large group of people could be in the billions of dollars every year. U.S. District Judge Robin Rosenberg, presiding over lawyers representing thousands of Zantac cancer lawsuits, decided that the FDA's issuance of a recall in 2020 was sufficient proof of the agency's concern that levels of NDMA in ranitidine were sufficient to cause cancer in some people. The judge failed to mention that the FDA was recalling ranitidine out of an abundance of caution, not because the levels of NDMA were too high, but because they were unable to monitor the temperatures that the drug would be exposed to during transportation and storage before being consumed. The FDA's opinion was that ranitidine's NDMA levels could accelerate if exposed to extremely high temperatures like those that online prescription drug testing pharmacy Valisure used to test Zantac and make their initial accusations. For the record, most processed meats, cheese, wines, and other spicy food and drink contain levels of NDMA thousands of times greater than those found in Zantac.">

More Recent Heartburn MedicineLawsuit News:

• Zantac Cancer Trials Are In Discovery To Begin In October 2022 | 7/19/2022
• Zantac Cancer Lawsuits Could Hinge On The Validity of Ranitidine Testing Methods | 7/11/2022
• Zantac Cancer Bellwether Trials In California Could Set The Stage For A Global Settlement Offer | 7/5/2022
• The FDA Recommended Protein Pump Inhibitor Drugs Like Prilosec And Nexium That May Damage Health More Than Zantac | 6/23/2022
• Truck Drivers, Firefighters, and Police Officers May Have Taken More Zantac Than People In Other Occupations | 6/20/2022

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.