Actor Chuck Norris and a law firm representing him announced that his wife, Gena Norris, suffered gadolinium poisoning and are now suing three different pharmaceutical companies for $10 million in damages.

According to a Newsweek article, the couple alleges Gena’s gadolinium poisoning came from medical scans she had taken five years ago. Later, she allegedly experienced adverse side effects including burning body pain, kidney damage, low energy, cognitive impairment, loss of mobility, and difficulty breathing.

Gena and Chuck believe Gena is now suffering from “gadolinium deposition disease,” a term that some patients have come to use to refer to a set of harmful symptoms that they believe result from gadolinium poisoning. However, pharmaceutical companies are not taking responsibility for the alleged damage they’ve caused, the couple claims.

In a statement about her gadolinium lawsuit, Gena says “Unfortunately, litigation is the only course of action we can take to hold the drug companies accountable for threatening the lives of so many innocent people who undergo MRIs.”

She continues to state that “These companies continue to say that there is no link between gadolinium and adverse events, even though the evidence is overwhelming that this heavy metal stays in the body for years, rather than hours.”

Overview: Gadolinium Poisoning

What is gadolinium, and how dangerous is it? Gadolinium is a heavy chemical element that is sometimes used in magnetic resonance imaging, or MRI. According to the American College of Radiology, roughly 30 million people receive gadolinium every year. It is used as a contrast agent to make medical scans reveal more about the patient’s condition.

However, according to a public health professor at Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health, contract dyes that contain gadolinium also contain other ingredients that are supposed to prevent gadolinium from having any toxic effects.

According to a safety alert by the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) released in December 2017, they reported that some patients who were contrasted with gadolinium may retain the chemical in their bodies for months to years, causing complications. Moreover, those with pre-existing kidney problems may also suffer from a rare condition known as nephrogenic systemic fibrosis (NSF).

Other than the occurrence of NSF in patients with pre-existing kidney problems, the FDA says no significant adverse effects have been reliably attributed to gadolinium. But patients with normal kidney function have also reported symptoms that they believe were caused by gadolinium contrast dye. Adverse side effects reportedly linked to gadolinium have included:

• Memory impairment
• Bone and joint pain
• Spongy or rubbery skin
• Thickened and painful ligaments
• Tightness in the hands and feet
• Headaches
• Cognitive difficulties or “brain fog”
• Pain and burning sensation in the arms, legs, and torso

Other patients besides the Norrises are also resorting to legal action, alleging the manufacturers of gadolinium contrast dyes failed to issue a proper warning about the alleged risk of these side effects.