SoClean Class Action Lawsuit Claims CPAP Cleaning Machines Not Safe For Human Use

Case joins other SoClean class action lawsuit filings, alleging consumers were misled about the safety of the CPAP cleaning machines

A class action lawsuit filed earlier this week claims that SoClean CPAP cleaning machines are not safe, since they emit high levels of ozone gas that should not be used around by humans or animals.

Dale Vernon, Sr. filed the complaint (PDF) on Monday in the U.S. District Court for the Northern District of Ohio, seeking class action status to pursue damages on behalf of himself and other purchasers of the CPAP cleaning machines.

SoClean has been marketed as a safe way to sterilize and deodorize CPAP machines, which are used by individuals with sleep apnea. However, to be effective at cleaning the CPAP machines, SoClean uses high levels of ozone gas, which may pose serious health risks for consumers, according to allegations raised by Vernon.

The lawsuit alleges that SoClean deceived consumers by claiming what the devices emitted was “activated oxygen.” In reality, which SoClean later admitted, the devices were emitting high levels of ozone, which is the principle ingredient of concern in smog.

“The SoClean devices work by generating ozone to sterilize and deodorize CPAP machines. Ozone (O3) is an unstable toxic gas with a pungent characteristic odor that can kill bacteria and viruses,” Vernon’s lawsuit notes. “To be effective as a germicide, ozone must be present in a concentration far greater than can be safely tolerated by humans or animals.”

Vernon indicates he purchased a SoClean 2 CPAP cleaning device in 2017, to clean his ResMed CPAP machine. He says he paid a premium price because of how SoClean presented “activated oxygen” as being safe and effective. Vernon’s complaint says he would not have purchased the device if he’d have known the truth about its ozone emissions and the potential health risks they represent.

The class action seeks to damages for all individuals nationwide who purchased SoClean CPAP machines, indicating that the manufacturer’s false representations have actually deceived and harmed individual consumers.

Concerns About SoClean CPAP Cleaning Devices

The complaint joints a growing number of SoClean lawsuits seeking class action status, which have been brought since concerns about the safety of the machines that emerged last year, in the wake of a massive Philips CPAP machine recalls.

Philips Respironics recalled millions of CPAP sleep apnea machines that contained a polyester-based polyethylene sound abatement foam, which has now been found to degrade and break down, releasing toxic particles directly in the users air pathways. This has been linked to a number of severe and potentially life-threatening side effects for users, including a potential risk of cancer from the Philips CPAP machines.

At the time of the recall, Philips made several statements suggesting that ozone CPAP cleaners like SoClean may cause the sound abatement foam to break down. While SoClean has maintained that the foam problems were the result of poor design choices by Philips, and not their sanitizing machine, many lawsuits allege that SoClean withheld information about the side effects that result from the high levels of ozone gas necessary to clean a CPAP.

In January, the U.S. Judicial Panel on Multidistrict Litigation centralized all SoClean CPAP sanitizing device lawsuits in the Western District of Pennsylvania for pretrial proceedings as part of a MDL, or multidistrict litigation. The cases are centralized before U.S. District Judge Joy Flowers Conti, who is also overseeing a MDL established for the growing number of Philips CPAP lawsuits filed over injuries and exposure to the toxic sound abatement foam.