Heartburn Drug Lawsuits on Rise Due to Dangerous PPI Medications

The number of heartburn drug lawsuits filed by injured patients is increasing recently due to more people coming forward with concerns about the side effects of these PPI medications.

Heartburn Drug Lawsuits Now Allow Direct Filing

A judge responsible for presiding over consolidated heartburn drug lawsuits has approved procedures that will allow a new case to be directly filed into overarching multidistrict litigation (MDL). This procedure will now be allowed because the number of heartburn drug lawsuits filed over Prevacid, Prilosec, and Nexium are becoming hard to manage.

Hundreds of heartburn drug lawsuits have already been moved to the MDL in the U.S. District Court for the District of New Jersey. Currently, those heartburn drug lawsuits are in the discovery and pretrial phases.

The rise of heartburn drug lawsuits has been spurred, in part, due to the number of medical studies released over the past few years pinpointing dangerous side effects. These studies show that in research, users may face higher risks of severe injuries like kidney failure, chronic kidney disease, and acute kidney injury.

The heartburn drug lawsuits already filed by consumers say that pharmaceutical companies have been responsible for misleading and false information regarding side effects. Consumers say that neither they nor their doctors were ever told about the risks of these PPI drugs, a task that should have fallen to the drug manufacturers.

Since so many people use these PPI medications, it’s expected that the number of heartburn drug lawsuits will continue to reach into the thousands in coming years. This is why the judge ultimately decided that those cases could be fast-tracked with the new direct filing approval.

This process will avoid delays often experienced by those filing defective drug lawsuits when the case has to be transferred from district courts across the country. Furthermore, all the heartburn drug lawsuits will benefit from standardized claims about the side effects and issues raised by patients.

The FDA first required new warnings about kidney damage back in December of 2014. The primary issue reported by medical studies and patients was acute interstitial nephritis, involving the sudden inflammation of the kidneys. If this problem is not caught early, it can develop into more serious issues.

More studies have drawn a connection between kidney problems and Nexium. These studies argue that consumers may face a higher risk of chronic kidney disease, acute kidney injury, or the need for dialysis treatment with severe kidney problems.



A recent study in the JAMA Internal Medicine Journal identified that heartburn medications were tied to a higher risk of chronic kidney disease. The study found that people using PPI drugs may be at a 50% higher risk of chronic kidney disease when compared with those not using drugs like Nexium. A 2016 study supported these results.

If you or someone you know has been seriously injured because of a kidney problem tied to a PPI and you want to investigate heartburn drug lawsuits, contact the lawyers at Bradley/Grombacher today to learn more about your rights- fill out the form here to learn more.