FDA Accusations Of A Coverup Will Be Hard For Phillips To Dismiss

Phillips knew since at least 2016 that their sleep apnea devices may elicit particles, gasses, and chemicals that could cause cancer

Wednesday, December 29, 2021 - As a former US President once discovered, the coverup can be worse than the crime itself. Consumers do not ask for perfectly safe products all of the time. That would be unreasonable. What they want is for companies to be honest and to take action immediately to rectify problems when they occur and are brought to light. All too often, however, a company is locked into maximizing its short-term profits and will sweep a complaint under the rug hoping that it will just go away. But as is the case of the customer complaints about finding black particles in the clear airway of their Phillips CPAP devices, sometimes the problem just gets larger until drastic action is taken. Instead of addressing the problem head-on, fixing it, and building customer loyalty and trust, Royal Phillips turned a small problem into a giant one. The company now faces hundreds of CPAP cancer lawsuits. Years ago customers were complaining they were finding black particles in the airway of their CPAP sleep apnea machine. According to NBC Chicago, "A Food and Drug Administration (FDA) investigation alleges that for years, the Philips Respironics company knew of health risks associated with its sleep aid devices but did not immediately act."

Instead of fixing just a few machines, Royal Phillips was forced to undertake a massive CPAP recall of millions of their CPAP, BiPAP, and ventilator sleep apnea machines starting with the popular DreamStation model. Overnight customers were told to stop using the device that they had invested thousands of dollars and as many hours in and had grown reliant upon for a night's sleep. Sleep apnea is not an insignificant condition as many people stop breathing during the night and then wake up choking and gasping for breath. The recall was due to those black particles mentioned earlier, pieces of degraded sound abatement foam passing through the device's airway and directly into the nose, sinus, mouth, and lungs of the user, putting them at risk of developing a variety of respiratory illnesses including lung cancer. Just the other day a woman filed a CPAP cancer lawsuit alleging that using the device every day for two years caused her mouth cancer. The patient also blames the CPAP device for causing her to develop pneumonia.

The Phillips CPAP coverup came to light when the company launched a voluntary recall of 15 million of their machines from around the world including the US, instantly triggering an FDA investigation of the company. The government found that Phillips CPAP tests going back as far as 2016 showed that Phillips employees knew about the insulative foam degradation issue but did not know what to do to correct the problem. NBC Chicago wrote, "According to the FDA's inspection, there were warnings from inside the company. This included "at least 14 tests or assessments" from as early as 2016 where Philips' staff were "aware of issues and concerns related to potential foam degradation."

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Lawyers for CPAP Cancer Lawsuits

We will represent all persons in involved in a BiPAP or CPAP cancer lawsuit on a contingency basis, meaning there are never any legal fees unless we win compensation in your case. Anyone who developed cancer or another serious side effect as a result of using a Philips CPAP sleep apnea machine or ventilator in --or is a family member of such a person--is eligible to receive a free, no-obligation case review from our attorneys. Simply contact our firm through the online contact form or the chat feature and one of our Philips BiPAP cancer lawyers serving will contact you promptly to discuss your case.