My colleague, Dr. Billauer, focuses on the legal aspect of the Zantac court case; as a toxicologist, I want to focus on the suspected carcinogen NDMA. The judge in the federal Zantac case was faced with the question of whether the NDMA found in Zantac (ranitidine) was responsible for the cancer seen in the plaintiffs. To answer that, it would be vital for her to know what level of NDMA causes human cancers. And to answer that question, we need to explore NDMA’s
- Health effects
- Dose-response (how much is needed to cause an adverse effect)
- How regulators choose their “safe” levels for chemicals.
NDMA is...