New commission filings have revealed that Sanofi-Aventis US LLC and GlaxoSmithKline LLC are being investigated by the Department of Justice over allegations that the heartburn drug, Zantac, causes cancer. The DOJ and U.S. Attorney’s Office are specifically looking to see if these companies violated the False Claims Act by failing to reveal their knowledge about the presence of NDMA in their product.
The probes began last month. Around the same time, the New Mexico Attorney General lodged a suit against multiple Zantac manufacturers for having violated the False Advertising Act, the Unfair Practices Act, and other laws.
Zantac cases have already been consolidated in Florida, but attorneys for 40 plaintiffs in California are seeking to have cases consolidated there, as well.
Cancers being attributed to Zantac include testicular, bladder, prostate, kidney, and thyroid. The claims also state that makers of the heartburn drug have known about its potential to cause injuries since the 1980s, and that some even worked to shut down those studies.
Zantac manufacturers continue to deny claims that their heartburn drug causes cancer and say that there is no causal link between Zantac and cancer.
