How Your Heartburn Medication Can Cause Cancer:
Zantac is one of the world’s most prescribed medications, with more than 15 million prescriptions written a year. The popular stomach-acid-blocking drug, and its generic ranitidine, have been on the market for decades, but manufacturers recalled the drug and its generics this April.In September 2019, the U.S. Food and Drug Administration announced a voluntary recall of Zantac after testing revealed that the medication and its generic, ranitidine, contained a carcinogen N-nitrosodimethylamine (NDMA). In April of 2020, the FDA asked that manufacturers remove Zantac and its generics from the shelves.
Why is Zantac a Cancer Risk?
The first warnings about Zantac came from Valisure, a Connecticut-based online pharmaceutical and laboratory company. Valisure found NDMA in several versions of the drug and alerted the FDA. NDMA contamination also led to recalls of blood pressure medications valsartan and losartan in July of 2018. The recall first stemmed from a new manufacturing process from a Chinese manufacturer.The FDA classified NDMA as a probable human carcinogen. There isn’t enough research on humans to classify it definitively as a human carcinogen. However, NDMA has caused tumors in animal studies. Manufacturers once used NDMA to produce rocket fuel. Still, they stopped using it because they found unusually high levels of NDMA in the air, soil, and water near rocket fuel manufacturing plants. Now, NDMA is used primarily for research but is also unintentionally created during manufacturing processes using alkylamines. Research links NDMA in ranitidine to several cancers, including stomach cancer, cancer in the small and large intestines, colorectal cancer, esophageal cancer, kidney cancer, bladder cancer, liver cancer, prostate cancer, pancreatic cancer, leukemia, non-Hodgkin’s lymphoma, and multiple myeloma.
What’s Next for Zantac?
Since the first Valsure warnings, researchers discovered that NDMA in these medications is likely not from contamination during the manufacturing process. Instead, it appears the drug is somewhat unstable and breaks down into components that include NDMA. The FDA asked manufacturers to examine whether the manufacturing process somehow exposes ranitidine’s ingredients to nitrates.Janet Woodcock, director of the FDA’s Center for Drug Evaluation and Research, told the House Committee on Energy and Commerce on October 30, 2019, that, “our chemists believe that [NDMA] is formed by the molecule ranitidine reacting with something, either during the manufacturing synthesis or during the finished dosage form or during storage.”
What Can I Do?
If you believe that you or someone you love developed cancer from using Zantac, ranitidine, or another generic formulation, you may be entitled to compensation. Call us at 888-910-6376 or contact us through our online form. There is no charge to talk to talk with a lawyer, and you’ll never pay a fee unless we recover compensation on your behalf.
