November 19, 2019 – On November 19, 2019, a North Carolina woman filed a Zantac lawsuit in the U.S. District Court for the Western District of North Carolina. She claimed that after taking Zantac for years, she was diagnosed with stomach cancer, which she blamed on the drug. She had started taking Zantac regularly in 1992 and continued to use either the brand-name or generic version for the next 27 years. Then in 2012, she was diagnosed with stomach cancer. The plaintiff blamed the manufacturers for failing to warn about the potential danger, and for failing to make sure their products were safe for the public.
The FDA had been investigating the presence of NDMA in high blood pressure drugs like valsartan and losartan for over a year. In July 2018, they notified the public of a voluntary recall of several drug products containing valsartan due to the presence of NDMA, which was found in the recalled products. In June 2019 that concern was transferred to ranitidine medications. Soon thereafter, the online pharmacy, Valisure, discovered NDMA in these drugs during its routine testing. The company notified the FDA, and then in September 2019, filed a petition with the agency to recall all ranitidine medications. In that petition, Valisure stated that unlike the blood pressure medications, in which NDMA seemed to appear as an impurity, ranitidine medications have an inherent instability that causes them to produce NDMA during the digestion process. The FDA was still working to determine the cause of NDMA in ranitidine.
Reference: Pittsburgh Injury Law News, January 2, 2020, https://pittsburgh.legalexaminer.com/health/north-carolina-woman-blames-zantac-for-stomach-cancer/
