Suits Target Chemical Used in Medical Tests

Plaintiffs lawyers are filing lawsuits against companies involved in the manufacture of a contrast dye used to help capture images for medical tests.

The suits claims the heavy metal, gadolinium, can cause a disease called nephrogenic system fibrosis that hardens the skin, the Recorder reports. The Food and Drug Administration has issued a warning about the chemical, which is used in magnetic resonance imaging.

At least a dozen law firms have ads that appear on Google when searches are done on the word.

In one of the latest suits, San Francisco law firm Levin Simes Kaiser & Gornick is seeking to try the case apart from any multidistrict litigation, in an effort to put the case on a fast track in California courts.