Virginia Beach Injury Attorney Reports – Warning over Toothbrushes that cause Injuries

By John Cooper, Virginia Beach Personal Injury Attorney

When our Virginia Beach, VA injury attorneys report on dangerous and defective products, we are often talking about automobiles, dangerous toys or other children’s products such as cribs.

But the latest alert issued by the U.S. Food and Drug Administration concerns defective toothbrushes that may pose a serious hazard when people clean their teeth with them.

Spin brush toothbrushes

The Arm & Hammer Spinbrush—or the Crest Spinbrush, as it was called before 2009 – has been found to break during use, causing parts to fly off at high speeds, chipping teeth, flying into eyes or getting stuck in the throats of users.

It’s important that consumers know how to avoid the risks associated with using the Spinbrush,” Shumaya Ali, M.P.H., a consumer safety officer at the Food and Drug Administration, said in a press release. “We’ve had reports in which parts of the toothbrush broke off during use and were released into the mouth with great speed, causing broken teeth and presenting a choking hazard.”

As attorneys who work with injured clients in Virginia Beach, we are alarmed by the list of injuries already documented as being caused by this toothbrush.

They include:

• chipped or broken teeth
• cuts to the mouth and gums
• swallowing and choking on broken pieces
• injury to the face and eyes

We are concerned that in an extreme case a child could choke to death using these toothbrushes.

The makes of toothbrush with a potential to injure users are:

• Spinbrush ProClean
• Spinbrush ProClean Recharge
• Spinbrush Pro Whitening
• Spinbrush SONIC
• Spinbrush SONIC Recharge
• Spinbrush Swirl
• Spinbrush Classic Clean
• Spinbrush For Kids
• Spinbrush Replacement Heads

The brushes are made by Church & Dwight Co. Inc. While the FDA has stopped short of a recall, it has issued a warning and the company has taken a number of actions including  improving its labeling to caution consumers to change the brush head every three months or sooner if the brush is worn or parts are loose and adding a safety notice.

I’m not convinced this goes far enough. Anyone injured by this product likely has a case to bring a personal injury lawsuit.

and Virginia Beach based personal injury law firm, Cooper Hurley, handles car, truck, and motorcycle injuries as well as brain injury, wrongful death, railroad workers’ injuries (FELA) mesothelioma and medical malpractice. John Cooper and Jim Hurley have over 40 years of combined experience in handling auto injury accident claims. Attorney John Cooper has been named to Virginia “Super Lawyers” since 2010 and has been a member since 2011 of the Multimillion dollar Advocates Roundtable. Cooper Hurley represents people hurt in accidents in Norfolk, Virginia Beach, Portsmouth, Suffolk, Chesapeake, Hampton, Newport News and throughout VA, and always put the best interests of the our clients first. The firm is recognized by other lawyers as “AV” by Martindale-Hubbell, a national attorney rating service, for our top level of legal skill and highest ethical standards. If you need help or advice about a serious injury, please call us (757) 455 -0077. For a free consultation with a specialized Hampton Roads, Virginia personal injury lawyer contact us through this website