Victoria’s Secret Bras Contaminated With Formaldehyde According To Ohio Woman’s Lawsuit

A woman in Ohio purchased Victoria’s Secret bras and after wearing them came down with hot , blistering welts and severe itching that made it difficult to sleep. She filed suit in May after tests revealed that the bras contained formaldehyde, an embalming chemical. She may be allergic to formaldehyde. The bras she purchased are the Angels Secret Embrace and Very Sexy Extreme Me Push-Up bras.

A class action lawsuit has been filed but court approval of the class action has not yet occurred. Apparently dozens of women have been contacting the Ohio attorneys who filed the suit with similar complaints. According to ABC News Victoria’s Secret has stated that "We have strict quality controls around our products, and we do not use formaldehyde in our bras". The woman’s attorneys have responded that "[i]t may not be something that they’re specifying to put in their bra, but somehow it’s making its way into the manufacturing process because it was certainly present," according to the ABC New story.

In a Fox News story they quote the Ohio woman as saying that"

I had the welts … very red, hot to the touch, extremely inflamed, blistery. It itched profusely. I couldn’t sleep, waking up itching.

How the formaldehyde got in Victoria’s Secret bras is not yet known but apparently other women are having the problem. Often in chemical sensitivity injury cases it turns out that contamination occurs in the manufacturing process when products are exposed to dangerous chemicals coming from some other source. In the DuPont Benlate cases that I was involved in as an attorney on behalf of flower farmers in Hawaii, the fungicide had been manufactured next door to a plant that manufactured a powerful herbicide and lack of quality control resulted in contamination of the fungicide powder with a powerful and deadly chemical. Perhaps that is what is happening here.

Consumers have no protection from these types of injuries. what we eat and wear and the air we breath can injure us it contains dangerous chemicals and no one can test all of these things before using or consuming them. That is why the corporate practices of manufacturers and the regulatory expense of our consumer protection government agencies is so important. Corporations have been successful at reducing government regulation and these are the results of such trends. The recent U.S. Supreme Court case of Wyeth vs. Levine and legislation proposed by corporation friendly legislators to completely bar lawsuits by injured consumers in these cases. They would have the governmental approvals of their products be a bar to any claim that the product is defective. You can read other articles in my Blog and at the Injury Board website about this attempt to take away consumer rights. Only public pressure will stop that from happening. Go to the American Association of Justice website to learn more and join the fight for people over profits!