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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...

Actor Robert De Niro unloaded on President Donald Trump during a speech to high school students this week, at one point appearing to compare the President to the Nazi leader Adolf Hitler. Addressing students at an awards ceremony for recipients of the Rosemary Breslin American Writer Award in New York, De Niro dedicated a large part of his speech to attacking Trump and Republicans in Congress for failing to tell the “truth.” “So what about the truth? What does the truth even mean today? I mean, if you’re Donald Trump it doesn’t mean anything. If you’re cowardly Republican enablers in...

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...

Along with so many other things, keeping a lid on spending seems to have gotten lost in the health care overhaul. Individuals lose some incentive to save a couple of bucks by having fewer tax-free dollars in their health savings accounts. A panel to oversee Medicare disbursements based on the cost of clinical effectiveness of treatments--zapped, thanks to intense lobbying by drugmakers, doctors and every other medical interest group. That leaves medical providers and health plans, which have little motivation, unless the employers who buy insurance turn the screws. They rarely do. But Edward Kaplan, a New York City health...

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...

People taking powerful antacid drugs called proton pump inhibitors face an increased risk of hip fracture, University of Pennsylvania researchers report. Common proton pump inhibitors include Aciphex, Nexium, Prevacid, Prilosec and Protonix; they are often prescribed for stomach conditions such as gastroesophageal reflux disease (GERD). The report is published in the Dec. 27 issue of the Journal of the American Medical Association. "If you take acid-suppression medications on a chronic basis and you are 50 or older, your hip fracture risk is even higher than usual," said study author Dr.Yu-Xiao Yang, an assistant professor of medicine and epidemiology. "In addition,...

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...