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Britain’s AstraZeneca has agreed to pay $425 million to settle about 11,000 lawsuits in the United States that claimed its heartburn drugs Nexium and Prilosec caused chronic kidney disease. AstraZeneca did not admit wrongdoing under the settlement, part of broader litigation against makers of a class of heartburn drugs called proton pump inhibitors (PPIs). “Today’s settlements are a significant victory for the thousands of patients who suffered kidney injuries as a result of using” the drugs, the plaintiffs’ attorney Chris Seeger said in a statement. A single lawsuit is still scheduled to go to trial in April in Louisiana, according...

Certain acid blockers in a popular heartburn drug might actually increase the risk of premature death. As CBS2’s Dr. Max Gomez reports, there are three main types of heartburn drugs. Antacids, like Tums and Rolaids, are fine. So are older acid blockers called H-2 blockers, like Pepcid and Zantac. But the evidence keeps piling up that drugs called PPIs, like Nexium, Prevacid and Prilosec, might actually be risky. They are among the best-selling drugs in the country, with more than $10 billion spent annually on a class of acid blocking medications called Proton Pump Inhibitors, or PPIs. It almost seems...

Associated Press The popular heartburn drugs Prilosec and Nexium don't appear to spur heart problems, say preliminary U.S. and Canadian probes announced Thursday. The Food and Drug Administration and its Canadian counterpart began reviewing the drugs, used by tens of millions of people, back in May, when manufacturer AstraZeneca provided them an early analysis of two small studies that suggested the possibility of a risk. Those studies compared treating the chronic heartburn known as gastroesophageal reflux disease, or GERD, with either of the two drugs or with surgery, and tracked patients for five to 14 years. The company's initial analysis...

Associated Press CHICAGO — Holiday revelers beware: Seasonal indulgences such as eggnog and fruitcake might give you heartburn, but the acid-fighting medicine you take for relief might lead to something worse, researchers say. People on popular prescription drugs for treating acid reflux — Prilosec, Prevacid and Nexium — seem more prone to getting a potentially dangerous diarrhea caused by the bacterium Clostridium difficile, new research shows. C-diff, as it's known, can cause severe diarrhea and crampy intestinal inflammation called colitis. Dr. Sandra Dial and colleagues at McGill University in Montreal examined data on more than 18,000 patients in the United...

THE CONSUMER Five popular heartburn drugs work in essentially the same way, but only one of them, Prilosec, is sold without a prescription. Does that mean it is not as effective as the others? No, doctors say, Prilosec works just as well as the prescription drugs for most people - but only if they can get their hands on it. The pills are in such short supply that many drugstores are asking customers to wait two weeks or more for fresh stocks. Some patients have tracked down the medicine by calling around to other stores or shopping on eBay. Others...

<p>WASHINGTON — Heartburn sufferers soon won't need a prescription to buy the popular remedy Prilosec, better known in TV ads as ''the purple pill.''</p> <p>The Food and Drug Administration approved a nonprescription version of Prilosec, one of the world's top-selling drugs, late yesterday.</p>