US Federal Court dismisses cancer linkage associated with Zantac

The US district in Florida dismissed almost 2,500 lawsuits alleging links between heartburn medication Zantac (ranitidine) and cancer. The judge said that almost 2,500 lawsuits filed in federal court by plaintiffs were based on flawed science and that the only reliable testing of the blockbuster drug undertaken showed an ‘unprovable risk of cancer.’

The recent decision of the US district court to slap down the long-pending cancer litigation over Zantac (ranitidine) has assured that science prevails over propaganda. The ruling has dismissed thousands of lawsuits saying that no science-driven sound scientific evidence establishes a link between Zantac and cancer. The ruling concludes that consumers used flawed science to back up lawsuits filed in federal court blaming Zantac for causing a variety of cancers. The experts couldn’t show legitimate links between the product and the diseases, which include lung, liver and kidney cancer.

Moreover, in India, when the National List of Essential Medicines (NLEM) dropped 26 medicines from the list including Zantac (ranitidine), the government officials clarified that there are no side-effects, but other parameters like the cost-effectiveness and availability of better drugs were the reasons for the drugs to be taken down from NLEM list. Molecules like atenolol, erythromycin, ranitidine and many more which are out of NLEM have been safe and efficacious for more than four decades. There are no side effects or cancer concerns with these molecules as recently stated in international studies as well.

The ruling was a significant win for the pharma companies GSK, Pfizer, Sanofi and Boehringer Ingelheim.