Prognosis
Carcinogen in Heartburn Drug May Build in Storage, Lab Finds
- Dangerous levels of chemical NDMA reached after five days
- Testing lab calls for products with active ingredient recalled
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The heartburn medicine Zantac appears to produce unacceptably high levels of a cancer-causing chemical when exposed to heat for as little as five days, according to a testing laboratory that’s urging the U.S. Food and Drug Administration to recall all forms of the widely used product.
Since at least September, the FDA has been monitoring the presence of a toxic chemical found in some samples of Zantac, which is also sold in generic versions. But the agency has found that levels of the chemical, NDMA, vary from safe to dangerously high. Those discrepancies have created uncertainty about how contamination is happening and whether consumers can safely use some versions of the drug.