PPI Wrongful Death
On February 1, 2021 Mario DeSouza filed a “Short-Form” complaint over his wife’s wrongful death in the U.S. District Court for the District of New Jersey. His wife, Lisa Marie DeSouza, used Nexium for ten years—by 2019 she had developed gastric cancer and related complications that led to her death. DeSouza’s lawsuit is one of more than 13,000 claims filed against the makers of a class of heartburn drugs known as proton pump inhibitors (PPI). Nexium, Prilosec, Protonix and other widely used medications are PPIs.
According to DeSouza’s lawsuit and thousands of similar cases, drug makers AstraZeneca and Merck failed to warn that Nexium was a defective and dangerous drug, and that the heartburn and acid reflux medication is linked to cancer. These cases are centralized before U.S. District Judge Claire C. Cecchi, who is presiding over the coordination of all discovery and federal pretrial proceedings in the District of New Jersey.
PPI Kidney Injury
The PPI drug claims that are involved in kidney injuries, mainly Nexium and Prilosec, are expected to begin with a series of bellwether trials in November 2021.
The first PPI kidney injury litigation began after the FDA required updated warning labels in December 2014. The agency’s warnings were followed by independent studies published in JAMA Internal Medicine. Researchers found an increased risk of chronic kidney disease with Nexium, Prilosec and other PPI. Users of these heartburn medications could be 50 percent more likely when compared to non-users.
READ MORE PROTON PUMP INHIBITOR GASTRIC CANCER LEGAL NEWS
By late 2017 two studies found that side effects of PPI medications may increase the risk of gastric tumors. Concerns about Nexium stomach cancer risks and Nexium gastric cancer lawsuits followed. Mr DeSouza says the Nexium drug makers knew for years about the adverse health risks and knowingly withheld this information from the public.