A Southern California law firm has filed a suit alleging Kimberly-Clark Corp., which offers medical goods among its many product lines, has been selling surgical gowns it falsely claims can protect against the Ebola virus.
The suit charges that the company continued to market the gowns with claims of providing the highest level of protection despite their failing health industry tests for protection from infectious diseases.
Healthcare workers and patients alike have been exposed to "considerable risk" from the millions of Kimberly-Clark's Microcool Breathable High Performance Surgical Gowns sold since 2011, the Eagan Avenatti law firm said.
"This conduct has placed physicians, healthcare workers and patients at risk of being unknowingly exposed to harmful bacteria, viruses and illness, including Ebola," lead attorney Michael Avenatti said in a statement.
"Kimberly-Clark needs to immediately recall these gowns and come clean with the FDA, CDC, healthcare professionals and the general public," he said. "The risks associated with continued concealment of the truth are far too great."
The lawsuit alleges the gowns failed standard industry tests at rates that "greatly exceeded" allowable levels, and that viral and bacterial pathogens could penetrate the surgical outfits.
Eagan Avenatti claims Dallas-based Kimberly Clark was aware of the problems in 2013 but continued to market the gowns.
The law firm filed its suit in U.S. District Court on behalf of a Los Angeles surgeon and other purchasers and users of the surgical gowns, asking for class-action status while seeking some $500 million in damages.
Kimberly-Clark spokesman Bob Brand said the firm does not comment on litigation matters but that the company "stands behind the safety and efficacy of our products."
In the current Ebola outbreak, the virus has infected more than 13,000 people in western Africa, with the death toll approaching 5,000.
The outbreak is the worst since the 1976 identification of the virus near the Ebola River in what is today the Democratic Republic of Congo, and has, for the first time, spread beyond countries in Africa.
In the U.S., a man who traveled from Liberia in Africa to Dallas died in a hospital there and two of the nurses who treated him became infected with Ebola, although both have survived.
In New York City, an emergency-room doctor who had returned from volunteer work in Africa was diagnosed with Ebola on Oct. 23 and remains in serious condition.
Ebola cases have also been treated in Europe in Spain, Germany, France and Norway.
