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Zantac’s maker kept quiet about cancer risks for 40 years

fiercepharma.com

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Re: Zantac’s maker kept quiet about cancer risks for 40 years

#61

Post by woodwireandfood »

blindriver wrote: post #22
mysterypie wrote: post #21

> Intense public scrutiny on Zantac started in 2019, when an online pharmacy found high levels of a likely carcinogen in the drug and its generics. And the linked article says: > Valisure discovered the link of Zantac and its generics to the carcinogen NDMA during its routine testing of every batch of every medication, and first notified the FDA of its initial findings in June of 2019. On September 13th, Valisure fil…

I've ordered medication from them because they test to make sure that there's no impurities. It's not that much more expensive and I would gladly pay to know there's no extra chemicals in there that could give me cancer.

Note that they sold their pharmacy business, but claim to be continuing the testing for the new owner: "The company has since sold its pharmacy operation to concentrate only on quality and safety testing. It continues to test products for the pharmacy’s new owner, Medly, along with other business clients looking to certify for their customers that what they’re buying is legitimate." From https://www.consumerreports.org/product-safety/valisure-foun...

Re: Zantac’s maker kept quiet about cancer risks for 40 years

#62

Post by Baeocystin »

sbaiddn wrote: post #55
LazyMans wrote: post #45

I was telling a friend how unfortunate it is that I live in the south and kept a bottle of this in my car for over a year. I have pretty bad heartburn issues and used to take it only on occasion. Maybe I'll get $35 from a settlement to go with my cancer one day.

Just as a heads up from a professional semi-chemist: dont ingest anything thats been at car temperatures. Its hot enough to chemically alter things, activate diffusions, speed bacterial growth, etc. Its not hot enough to sterilize what you're ingesting.

But the white spiky crystal fuzz that grew out of some advil left in my car over a desert summer was so cool!

(sadly before the era of camera phones, but the needle crystals really did look neat. The contents of the bottle were not ingested.)

Re: Zantac’s maker kept quiet about cancer risks for 40 years

#63

Post by mfkp »

mysterypie wrote: post #21

> Intense public scrutiny on Zantac started in 2019, when an online pharmacy found high levels of a likely carcinogen in the drug and its generics. And the linked article says: > Valisure discovered the link of Zantac and its generics to the carcinogen NDMA during its routine testing of every batch of every medication, and first notified the FDA of its initial findings in June of 2019. On September 13th, Valisure fil…

It looks like it wasn't profitable enough for them, Valisure doesn't seem to run their online pharmacy anymore.

As of 2021, it appears they pivoted to running the lab as a service for other companies. I found one online pharmacy that was using Valisure (Medly.com) but it appears to have gone bankrupt, assets acquired by Walgreens and shut down.

https://www.businessinsider.com/walgreens-buys-medly-pharmac...

Re: Zantac’s maker kept quiet about cancer risks for 40 years

#64

Post by mfkp »

woodwireandfood wrote: post #61
blindriver wrote: post #22

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I've ordered medication from them because they test to make sure that there's no impurities. It's not that much more expensive and I would gladly pay to know there's no extra chemicals in there that could give me cancer.

Note that they sold their pharmacy business, but claim to be continuing the testing for the new owner: "The company has since sold its pharmacy operation to concentrate only on quality and safety testing. It continues to test products for the pharmacy’s new owner, Medly, along with other business clients looking to certify for their customers that what they’re buying is legitimate." From https://www.consumerreports.o…

And Medly filed for bankruptcy in December, and sold it's digital assets to Walgreens as of last week (and is now shut down completely).

https://digitalhealth.modernhealthcare.com/finance/medly-sel...

Re: Zantac’s maker kept quiet about cancer risks for 40 years

#65

Post by TMWNN »

pdntspa wrote: post #16
ccn0p wrote: post #3

what's crazy to me is how terrible of a track record big pharma has in being even moderately uncorrupted, and yet when it comes to vaccines, sprinkle in a bit of fear and suddenly we're supposed to trust their studies and superbowl commercials.

I would think that, with the number of people who received it, any issues would have been sussed out by now

ranitidine was a very, very, very widely used drug. Yet it took 40 years!

Re: Zantac’s maker kept quiet about cancer risks for 40 years

#66

Post by logicalmonster »

pdntspa wrote: post #16
ccn0p wrote: post #3

what's crazy to me is how terrible of a track record big pharma has in being even moderately uncorrupted, and yet when it comes to vaccines, sprinkle in a bit of fear and suddenly we're supposed to trust their studies and superbowl commercials.

I would think that, with the number of people who received it, any issues would have been sussed out by now

> I would think that, with the number of people who received it, any issues would have been sussed out by now

A large sample size means less if the problems are longer-term in nature such as an increase in cancer rates down the road or problems with fertility, which might take more time to fully detect and understand.

And a large sample size means little without a control group: yet if some people had their way, there'd be no control group left.

Re: Zantac’s maker kept quiet about cancer risks for 40 years

#67

Post by EarthLaunch »

slowmovintarget wrote: post #18
monero-xmr wrote: post #5

Interesting counterpoint is that a judge recently lambasted the entire body of scientific evidence linking ranitidine (Zantac) to cancer and tossed all the cases. https://www.chemistryworld.com/news/judge-dismisses-ranitidi... If they could find a way to ensure the impurity didn’t exist, I would certainly buy ranitidine again. I found it was the most effective antacid for me.

Except... you still shouldn't use it because it's an anticolinergic linked to dementia in old age, just like Benedryl.

Thank you, this led me down a really interesting rabbithole about age-related dementia and anticholinergic substances. Best tidbits:

1: "Anticholinergic Accumulation: A Slumbering Interaction between Drugs and Food Supplements" https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/full/10.1111/bcpt.12437

2: Chart of medicines with high ACB scores (higher is worse) - you will recognize some of these, such as allergy and anti-nausea meds: (pdf warning) https://corumpharmacy.com/wp-content/uploads/2020/08/Anticho...

Re: Zantac’s maker kept quiet about cancer risks for 40 years

#68

Post by ivraatiems »

giraffe_lady wrote: post #47
ivraatiems wrote: post #40

Earlier quoted context omitted.

How would I have known to file a lawsuit about something when I had no knowledge of the situation for years?

You were possibly poisoned, probably intentionally, by an entity that intended to and did profit by it. You may get a small amount of money if you have the luck and the resources to capitalize on it. There's nothing unique or novel about this situation. Is it surprisingly that it happened or just surprising that it happened to you? This is what we do son, this is what american is for . This is the system working as i…

It's not surprising - I know the points you're making and I agree with them. I'm posing a question I think we should discuss. What should my recourse be?

In reality, the absolute harm done to me (if any) is probably very limited. Maybe my lifelong risk of cancer has gone up by some quite small amount. The greater harm is damage to my trust in the organizations that produce my necessary medications.

So the recourse is probably not giving me anything extravagant, it's probably more about some sort of fix to oversight, regulation, corporate penalties paid for this, etc. None of which is likely to happen as a result of a lawsuit, except maaaybe the last one.

Re: Zantac’s maker kept quiet about cancer risks for 40 years

#69

Post by refurb »

slowmovintarget wrote: post #18
monero-xmr wrote: post #5

Interesting counterpoint is that a judge recently lambasted the entire body of scientific evidence linking ranitidine (Zantac) to cancer and tossed all the cases. https://www.chemistryworld.com/news/judge-dismisses-ranitidi... If they could find a way to ensure the impurity didn’t exist, I would certainly buy ranitidine again. I found it was the most effective antacid for me.

Except... you still shouldn't use it because it's an anticolinergic linked to dementia in old age, just like Benedryl.

So are most antihistamines.

Everything will kill you, no need to get worked up about the infinitesimal risk.

Re: Zantac’s maker kept quiet about cancer risks for 40 years

#70

Post by refurb »

TMWNN wrote: post #65
pdntspa wrote: post #16

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I would think that, with the number of people who received it, any issues would have been sussed out by now

ranitidine was a very, very, very widely used drug. Yet it took 40 years!

This!

Look at the COX-2 inhibitors as well. They were on the market for almost a decade before the increased risk of heart attack popped up in the data.

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