9. Zantac Lawsuits Update
Deezer In this episode Jonathan Rosenfeld chats with Martin D. Gould an Attorney at Romanucci & Blandin, LLC. Here, they discuss:
Zantac Lawsuits Update
Read the Transcript
Jonathan Rosenfeld :
Hi, I am Jonathan Rosenfeld and I am an attorney, and I am with my good friend and colleague Marty Gould today. We are here to talk about probably one of the largest and most prolific drug recalls in the United States ever, certainly in recent history, and that involves the popular heartburn medication Zantac.
Jonathan Rosenfeld :
Marty is very active with the Zantac litigation, and he is here today to discuss the status of the litigation who qualifies for this and to sort of give us some insight as to how these cases may play out.
Jonathan Rosenfeld :
Marty, first off, thank you for joining me today. I appreciate it, and could you just briefly introduce yourself, and let us know a little bit about the background and just what Zantac is and bring us up to date with the current status of the recall on Zantac?
Marty Gould:
John, thanks for the introduction. I'm of counsel with Rosenfeld Injury Lawyers. Our team represents hundreds and hundreds of individuals that have cancer that we believe was caused by a Zantac consumption or generic. Zantac was a very popular heartburn and acid reflux medication.
Marty Gould:
Millions and millions of people have used Zantac for those purposes, and recent studies have shown that there's a connection between an ingredient in Zantac, ranitidine, and cancer. It's the chemical structure of the Zantac tablet that once it's consumed, and once it's mixed with water in your body, it causes what's called NDMA, a very toxic substance that is linked to cancer.
Marty Gould:
For that reason, people that have been taking Zantac, many of these people for years and years on a frequent basis, are now getting cancer. Typically, it's a stomach cancer, bladder cancer, stomach cancer, but also the blood-based cancers such as liver cancer. Right now, there's a litigation that's being handled, a multi-district litigation, where all the Zantac cases are being filed in the Southern District of Florida.
Marty Gould:
Anyone who has a case, they're filing their claims there, and the lawyers are litigating those cases now. We're still in the earlier stages, and there's trials that are expected to start going in probably 2022.
Jonathan Rosenfeld :
Now, you mentioned that these cases are filed in what's called a multi-district litigation or MDL. I want to talk with you about the differences between an MDL that some people may not be familiar with and a traditional lawsuit. First off, I guess, as a starting point, I guess, what is an MDL case?
Marty Gould:
Sure. Multi-district litigation is essentially a type of case where all the cases may be a little bit different, so if you've been taking Zantac for one year, several times a week, and somebody else has been taking Zantac for 10 years on a daily basis, you may have a different type of case because your exposure was different. If you have a family history of cancer, that may be a relevant facts.
Marty Gould:
Everyone's case is a little bit different. Everyone's injuries are a little different. Some people tragically are filing a case on behalf of a loved one who's deceased, who has died because of cancer linked to Zantac. Others may just have an early diagnosis, so the injuries are different every case.
Marty Gould:
A multi-district litigation, essentially, consolidates all the different cases into one courtroom for efficiency purposes. It's typically done in a federal courthouse. In this case, it's a federal courthouse in the Southern District of Florida.
Marty Gould:
To avoid having rulings in many different states, in many different jurisdictions that could be conflicting, you'll have one judge who will oversee the litigation. Will set various deadlines, and essentially, the cases are litigated in a fashion where there's bellwether cases. The steering committee that's litigating most of these cases will choose a certain number of cases, that will be the first cases to be litigated, the first cases to go to trial.
Marty Gould:
Once these bellwether cases are concluded, that usually allows the rest of the plaintiffs to know what the potential value of these zantac cases are, and it usually drives settlements. If there's successful results at trial, it usually results in a settlement agreements or settlement discussions on other people that have cancer that was linked to Zantac.
Jonathan Rosenfeld :
Right now, we have this MDL that's been filed in Florida, but we also have a recall that was issued by the food and Drug Administration, the FDA, related to Zantac, and that would happen in 2000... I'm sorry, in September 13, 2019, the FDA issued that recall. Why, I guess, did the FDA issued this recall, and what is the impact that you see in terms of the recall on the pending litigation?
Marty Gould:
There are studies going back to the '80s that linked NDMA and Zantac to cancer, and as of late, because lawsuits were filed, the US Food and Drug Administration started its own investigation, and September 13, 2019, they essentially published a public warning about the link. There was additional research and lab testing.
Marty Gould:
The levels of NDMA found were significantly higher than which was deemed to be safe for a body to consume, certainly very alarming. The FDA certainly announced that this was a potential health hazard.
Marty Gould:
In the wake of the FDA safety warnings, the drug manufacturers for Zantac and its generic brands pulled off the drug from shelves across the country. Walmart, Walgreens, CVS, many of the big retailers pulled the drug because the consensus was it wasn't safe to be consumed.
Marty Gould:
The unfortunate reality is that, while people now aren't being exposed to Zantac and the cancer-causing substances within the tablets, we still have thousands and thousands of people that have been using Zantac for years and have existing injuries. That's what these cases are about. It's about compensating people for their past harms and for their current harms.
Jonathan Rosenfeld :
Let me ask you this, so you mentioned that, first off, Zantac has been on the market since the 1980s, so this has been on the market for a long time. I guess as a consequence of the patents are on the original drug expiring, now we have different manufacturers and generic versions of this that were on the market. Is that correct?
Marty Gould:
That's correct. You had various drug manufacturers that were producing Zantac or a generic version of it, ranitidine, Sanofi, GlaxoSmithKline, [Oringer 00:09:03], and the claims are essentially falling into two categories, defective design or manufacturer of that drug, that it was defective. It was harmful. It shouldn't have been sold to the public in the first place.
Marty Gould:
The second part of that is the failure to warn consumers, because people are taking these drugs because the advertisements are saying, look, this is a safe drug, and I can remember some of the Zantac commercials. They had somebody with a fire extinguisher, and he's using it and it's, "Hey, this is going to extinguish your heartburn and your acid reflux. It's a safe drug to use." That was the message, and that wasn't the case.
Marty Gould:
I think through the discovery process, we'll get more specifics. When did these drug manufacturers first know that it wasn't harmful? If there's studies out there from the '80s saying that there was that potential harmful cancer-causing link, there's good reason to believe that the manufacturers had that information, and because they were selling it to millions and millions of consumers, they didn't act on that information.
Jonathan Rosenfeld :
I guess at this point, if you took Zantac or the generic equivalent, first off, does it make any difference in terms of pursuing a legal claim? In other words, if I took Zantac manufactured by Sanofi or by Glaxo, does it make any difference in terms of my legal rights, in terms of filing a lawsuit at this point?
Marty Gould:
Well, John, as you know, we represent hundreds and hundreds of plaintiffs who have used either the name brand or the generic. There are legal differences, and that's why I think it's important for people to speak with a lawyer to understand what the potential legal ramifications are if you were only consuming a generic, but there's a few things to keep in mind.
Marty Gould:
When we sign a case, the first thing we tell people is, for one, do you have any Zantac in the house? Do you have any ranitidine in the house? Were you prescribed it? We've had many clients that still have the bottle, preserved the bottle. That's going to be evidence in the case. It's something we certainly want to hold on to.
Marty Gould:
Then, I guess, the next part of that is proving the use of the drug, medical records. Some people were prescribed it. Other people maybe, because it was sold over the counter, weren't prescribed it, but had reported to other primary care physician or other doctors when they were asked, ...