Patients Injured by Zantac Have a New Way to Seek Justice

On April 1, 2020, the U.S. Food and Drug Administration officially took Zantac and related drugs off the market—but by then, it was just a formality. Multiple drugs containing ranitidine, the active ingredient in Zantac, have been recalled since September of 2019. That month was when the FDA first announced that at least some of them were contaminated with NDMA, a substance that is known to cause cancer.

In the seven months since then, Americans have filed hundreds of lawsuits against drug manufacturers, alleging that they knew or should have known that their drugs could cause cancer. In fact, there are so many Zantac cancer lawsuits—229 of them, as of April 15—that the federal court system has consolidated them in one court, where many injured patients and their lawyers can pool their resources. This consolidation makes it easier for people who believe Zantac or other ranitidine drugs caused their cancer to seek fair compensation through the courts.

Trammell PC focuses its practice on just this kind of dangerous drug lawsuit, and we are currently investigating Zantac as well. If you’d like to talk to us about your experience with ranitidine drugs and cancer, don’t hesitate to contact us online or call us at 1-800-405-1740.

Why Are There Concerns About Zantac Causing Cancer?

The FDA believes Zantac and other ranitidine drugs create a carcinogenic (cancer-causing) compound called NDMA when the body metabolizes them. NDMA is mainly found as a by-product of rocket fuel manufacture and water treatment; it is also used to create cancer in laboratory animals. The International Agency for Research on Cancer says it probably causes cancer in human beings, and it also causes liver damage, according to the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. A medical student in Canada even once tried to poison another student with it.

The FDA’s April 1 press release announcing its ranitidine recalls says the agency believes NDMA in those medicines increases over time, particularly if it’s stored in conditions warmer than room temperature. The agency has been researching this for months and has not announced any conclusions about where the contamination comes from, but two independent laboratories have found that exposing the drug to heat, during or even after the manufacturing process, increases the levels of unsafe NDMA.

What Can Patients Taking Zantac Do?

The FDA has asked patients who were taking Zantac or generic ranitidine to stop taking them and dispose of the drugs safely.

For patients who’ve been diagnosed with stomach cancer, esophageal cancer, or other Zantac-related cancers[1], however, the order to get rid of the drug may come too late. For those patients, it may make sense to sue the drug companies that carelessly put out a product that causes cancer. To win this kind of case, those patients must show not only that they took a drug that’s been recalled for containing a carcinogenic substance, and that the drugmaker failed to remove it or warn patients, but also that the drug—rather than some other factor, like exposure to a chemical at work—caused the cancer. That final aspect is so important that cases have been lost on that issue alone. Fortunately, researchers at Memorial Sloan Kettering Cancer Center in New York City are conducting a study that may help shed some light on this growing area of medical concern.

Contact Trammell PC to Learn More About a Zantac Lawsuit

At Trammell PC, drug and device litigation is all we do. We have the expertise to handle the complex issues around a Zantac or ranitidine cancer lawsuit, and we handle cases from across the United States. If you’d like to learn more, call us today at 1-800-405-1740 or contact us through our website.


[1]  These include: intestinal cancer, colorectal cancer, liver cancer, bladder cancer, and kidney cancer.

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