4 Key Points About Ranitidine Injuries and Lawsuits

When people take popular, commonplace, over-the-counter, and prescribed medications, they naturally trust those medications to offer the expected risks with acceptable risk levels for side effects or complications. Unfortunately, a widely used heartburn medication called ranitidine raises the long-term risk for cancer.

If you've gotten seriously ill in recent years, and if you suspect that your illness stems from your use of ranitidine (better known by its brand name of Zantac), you should understand the background of this known issue and your legal options for obtaining financial compensation. Consider the following four key points on the subject.

1. Ranitidine Can Cause Serious Health Problems

For many years, pharmaceutical companies produced Zantac and other medications that included ranitidine as an ingredient. Although ranitidine gained popularity for its effectiveness in combating chronic heartburn, studies later found that it subjected the body to dangerous levels of n-nitrosodimethylamine (NDMA).

In addition to its presence in ranitidine-based drugs, NDMA may appear in air, water, soil, and food as a byproduct of industrial processes. The FDA's research discovered that ranitidine-based products exposed customers to nine times the amount generally accepted as safe for human consumption.

Research has linked high levels of ranitidine to elevated risks for several kinds of cancer, including liver, throat, stomach, bladder, colon, prostate and pancreatic cancer. It also appears to increase the risk of other serious liver problems such as inflammation, fibrosis, and cirrhosis in studies on animals.

2. Ranitidine's Damaging Effects Can Develop Over Time

If ranitidine use has damaged your health, you may experience warning symptoms such as nausea, vomiting, inexplicable weight loss, stomach pains, and urine discoloration on a recurring basis. However, these trouble signs may occur only several years after the exposure to the ranitidine that caused your illness.

Because of this time lag, you might not connect your previous use of the product in question with your current condition. However, Florida's product liability laws give individuals up to four years from the time they first discover their injury to file a lawsuit. Your attorney can advise you on your ability to file such a lawsuit.

3. A Product Liability Lawsuit May Provide Necessary Compensation

The makers of ranitidine-based medications have removed these products from U.S. store shelves in recent years. Even so, their efforts to protect public health don't necessarily exonerate them for the injuries their products may have caused during their window of availability, which means that you may have the right to file a lawsuit.

Such a lawsuit may prove necessary for many reasons. A chronic, serious illness such as cancer or liver failure can force you to spend huge amounts of money on medical treatment. At the same time, your illness may prevent you from earning a steady income or even handling everyday chores without professional assistance.

In addition to the tangible losses a ranitidine-based illness may incur, your attorney may also encourage you to seek compensation for intangible losses. Examples of such losses could include pain and suffering, side effects from any necessary treatment, and negative impact on your overall quality of life.

4. Ranitidine Product Liability Lawsuits Can Prove Complex

If you initially thought that you could simply participate in an existing class-action lawsuit against the makers of ranitidine-based products such as Zantac, think again. Although many plaintiffs have opted to sue, the widely varied nature of their circumstances has forced the need to file individual personal injury claims.

Ranitidine product liability lawsuits are not open-and-shut cases. The fact that medical research has linked ranitidine to cancer and liver disease does not automatically mean that your own cancer or liver disease stemmed from your ranitidine use. Nor does the drug maker's voluntary recall automatically imply the maker's guilt.

If you want your lawsuit to proceed with a reasonable chance of success, you may need to dispel doubt over other possible risk factors that might have led to your illness. Your attorney will most likely need to show that you had no personal medical history, family medical history, or lifestyle factors that might have triggered the disease instead.

Many product liability lawsuits don't actually make it to trial, while those that do may not proceed to a court judgment and award. The defendant in the case may prefer to settle the matter out of court for a lesser amount of money.

While this move can prevent your case from dragging out and accumulating additional legal fees, it also places you at risk of receiving less compensation than you might really need in the long term. You and your attorney may need to discuss this critical point in detail before you agree to any settlement amount.

If your physical and financial health face serious jeopardy due to previous ranitidine exposure, consult the legal experts at Jeeves Law Group. We can evaluate your situation, determine whether you have a valid case, and help you make that case in the form of a product liability lawsuit. Contact our office today.