Quoted message said:From the Los Angeles Times
Air Purifier Gets Another Critical Blow
Consumer Reports pans a Sharper Image device. The firm accuses the
magazine of 'a vendetta.'
By Roger Vincent
Times Staff Writer
Published April 6, 2005
Neither the lawsuit nor, it appears, the new model cleared the air.
Shares of Sharper Image Corp. sank 9% on Tuesday after the new issue of
Consumer Reports panned the latest version of the company's bestselling
air purifier.
Not only does it fail to sufficiently clean indoor air, but the heavily
advertised Ionic Breeze Quadra Silent Air Purifier and four similar
machines by other manufacturers might even release potentially
unhealthy levels of ozone, the magazine said in editions that hit
newsstands Tuesday.
Investors also held their noses, sending Sharper Image stock down $1.36
to $14.32 on Nasdaq, its lowest closing price since August 2002.
Ozone is an irritant that can aggravate asthma and deaden the sense of
smell and may cause permanent lung damage.
Sharper Image attorney E. Robert Wallach blasted the report as "a
vendetta" by Yonkers, N.Y.-based Consumers Union, the magazine's
publisher, for the purpose of making money. The San Francisco-based
retailer unsuccessfully sued Consumer Reports for libel for earlier
articles critical of the machines.
"It is outrageous for Consumers Union to engage in scaremongering about
indoor air purifiers when they acknowledge any danger is uncertain and
in any event not imminent," he said.
The company hasn't received any reports from buyers of problems related
to ozone, he said.
Consumers Union Technical Director Jeff Asher said the Ionic Breeze
Quadra, which sells for $450, and the other purifiers the magazine
tested were rated "not recommended" because they were largely
ineffective. The ozone they create is not an imminent danger, he
acknowledged, "but why put additional pollution levels in your air when
you don't need them?"