Zantac Lawsuit is Narrowed Down to The Usual Suspects

After almost a year and a half after the Zantac multi district litigation was created, Florida Judge Robin Rosenberg has narrowed down the defendants to mainly the manufacturers of the drug. Manufacturers Boehringer Ingelheim and Sanofi-Aventis, the first manufacturers to be sued in 2019, have become the main targets in the lawsuit alleging that consumers developed cancer as result of taking Zantac. Consequentially, consumers who developed cancer after taking Zantac have once again become the center of the lawsuit.

A Long History

In September, 2019, Valisure LLC, an independent pharmacy, filed a petition with the FDA to recall all products containing ranitidine, including Zantac, after conducting a study that showed a link between Zantac and the carcinogen NDMA. After major distributors like Walmart, Walgreens, and CVS, removed Zantac from their shelves and four manufacturers issued voluntary recalls, the FDA finally issued an official recall notice by April 2020.

Links To Cancer

The catalyst that accelerated the recall issued by the FDA was the petition and study done by Emery Pharma, which led the FDA to officially recognize that if ranitidine based products like Zantac are exposed to higher temperatures, there will be a greater presence of the carcinogen NDMA which has been linked to higher incidence of liver cancer, gastric cancer, as well as other types of cancer.

New Developments

More than a year later, the MDL is still in its pre-trial stage. A Florida federal judge, however, has set the date on a bellwether plan for October 1^st. More importantly, however, one of the latest orders by the Judge has opened the possibility for plaintiffs to pursue more types of claims that were previously disputed; however, the claims made by Zantac users that developed cancer have now been made the center of the litigation.

Valisure Detected Large Amounts of NDMA

Valisure has detected NDMA in excess of 3,000,000 ng per tablet when analyzing ranitidine products, likely due to an inherent instability of the ranitidine molecule. The ranitidine molecule contains both a nitrite and a dimethylamine (“DMA”) group which are well known to combine to form NDMA.

A Strong Victory

Plaintiffs managed to win with a key ruling by Judge Rosenberg that allows them to pursue a variety of claims including negligence, wrongful death, punitive damages, and design defect.
Defendants argued that each complaint made by plaintiffs was a “shotgun pleading” in so far as bringing allegations against 100 companies, leading to claims that may be dependent on each other yet potentially lacking clarity as to each company’s responsibility.

Reading Between the Lines

Judge Rosenberg dismissed claims which cited a law designed to combat organized crime, after saying those plaintiffs lacked standing. The Judge also indicated that medical monitoring claims, made by plaintiffs who have do not have cancer and are trying to receive compensation for pre-emptive cancer screenings, did not belong in the class complaint and should be dismissed as well. The judge also dismissed  distributors and pharmacies who sold Zantac from the litigation. In all the decisions made by the Judge, Zantac users who sued manufacturers because they developed cancer as a result of using Zantac were left untouched. The decisions made by the Court have brought the focus of the litigation back on consumers that currently have cancer and request  manufacturers to face justice for allegedly producing a cancer-causing medication.

If you or a loved one has been using Zantac and has developed liver cancer, kidney cancer, gastric cancer, or colorectal cancer then you may be entitled to receive compensation. Our team at Oppenheim Law recognizes the emotional burden these impairments can have on individuals and their lives. That is why our firm provides a team of professionals committed to zealously represent our clients.

Please feel free to call us at (954) 384-6114 or contact us at contactus@oppenheimlaw.com so we can inform you of your legal rights so you can obtain the compensation to which you are entitled.

From the Trenches,

Roy Oppenheim

originally posted at: https://www.oppenheimlaw.com/zantac-lawsuit-is-narrowed-down-to-the-usual-suspects/