In the face of mounting nationwide lawsuits and continuing alarming testing data, the United States Food and Drug Administration (FDA) has finally announced it is requesting manufacturers withdraw all prescription and over-the-counter (OTC) ranitidine drugs from the market immediately. As a result of this immediate market withdrawal request, ranitidine products (commonly known by the brand name Zantac) will not be available for new or existing prescriptions or OTC use in the U.S.
The FDA is also advising consumers taking OTC ranitidine to stop taking any tablets or liquid they currently have, and seek other drugs approved for the same or similar uses as ranitidine that do not carry the same cancer risks.
You have already done quite a bit of internet research and likely found that getting to the answer can be a little more complicated than it sounds. “Zantac” is just the brand name of a popular heartburn drug called ranitidine (kind of like Xerox is just the popular brand name of a copy machine). So we will just use the name Zantac to loosely refer to all ranitidine products. Zantac can be prescribed by a doctor or purchased over-the-counter, for different digestive issues. Zantac is produced by a bunch of drug companies you know (Pfizer, GlaxoSmithKline, Sanofi, Boehringer, etc.) and a bunch of generic drug manufacturers that you have probably never heard of. You have also likely been told by now that generic drug companies are generally immune to lawsuits (yes and no – but you likely will have to prove that you were not taking generic Zantac only). In addition, you may have been taking combinations of different types of Zantac over several years, and you obviously did not save all of your Zantac receipts. All of this starts to seem complicated, but you have to break it down into more manageable parts.