California Lawsuit Claiming Zantac Causes Cancer Moves Forward

Hello, it’s Anna in Virginia. A case alleging a popular heartburn medication causes cancer may finally see its day in court after a yearslong saga. But first...

I’ve been following the saga of the heartburn drug Zantac since 2019. That’s when the drug was first recalled because it was contaminated with a probable carcinogen called NDMA. The next year, the FDA forced Zantac and its generic competitors off the market altogether after the agency determined the active ingredient, ranitidine, could form NDMA over time or in warmer temperatures.

Given the serious efforts to get this drug off the market, I was a bit surprised when last year a Florida judge ruled that thousands of lawsuits against the makers of Zantac shouldn’t move forward. US District Judge Robin Rosenberg threw out all of the experts that plaintiffs’ lawyers had hoped to use to argue their case. She offered a detailed 341-page account of why she disagreed with their takes, making it clear that she, rather than a jury, would have the last say on difficult and extremely technical scientific arguments.

Now, a judge in California has taken an entirely different approach, opening the door to what may be the first trial concerning the blockbuster drug and whether it causes cancer. A few weeks ago, Evelio Grillo, a judge in the Superior Court of Alameda County, denied, for the most part, the effort by lawyers for Zantac-maker GSK to exclude the plaintiff’s experts.

“The jury has the responsibility for resolving conflicts between (admissible) competing expert opinions,” Grillo wrote. In other words, he’s leaving it to the jury to determine if the experts’ scientific opinions are reasonable.

The ruling means the plaintiff James Goetz may very well have his day in court against GSK. Goetz, a religious Zantac user for more than two decades, was diagnosed with bladder cancer in 2017 and has undergone various life-altering medical interventions as a result, such as having his bladder, prostate and 20 feet of his intestines removed. His lawyers had pills tested that Goetz kept following the 2019 recall. One pill contained more than 30 times the tiny amount of NDMA that the Food and Drug Administration has allowed drugs to contain.

“The California court order validates what we have been saying for years—that the evidence needs to be shown to a jury,” Brent Wisner, one of Goetz’s attorneys, said when Grillo’s ruling came down.

If GSK doesn’t settle, the trial is set to start July 24. The outcome could have a big impact on tens of thousands of state cases around the US waiting to go next.— Anna Edney