FDA Says Heartburn Drug Zantac Should be Pulled From Shelves Right Away

If you are someone or know someone who uses the heartburn drug Zantac, you may want to pay close attention.

This week the Food and Drug Administration said Zantac should immediately be pulled from shelves and consumers should dispose of any pills or liquid they have at home.

According to safety tests last summer, there were extremely high levels of the contaminant NDMA, believed to be a carcinogen, discovered in samples of the drug.

The active ingredient in Zantac is ranitidine, and the FDA said that over time, NDMA appears as an impurity in ranitidine in levels exceeding federal standards, NPR reports.

A warning had been issued last fall to CVS, Walgrens, and Walmart from the FDA to remove the drug and its generic forms from stores.

The FDA had later confirmed that the issue is how ranitidine naturally breaks down in normal storage conditions, and has nothing to do with the way it is manufactured.

“We didn’t observe unacceptable levels of NDMA in many of the samples that we tested,” the FDA’s Janet Woodcock said on Wednesday. “However, since we don’t know how or for how long the product might have been stored, we decided that it should not be available to consumers and patients unless its quality can be assured.”

Disclaimer: We have no position in any of the companies mentioned and have not been compensated for this article.