California mom sues Zinus Inc. over fiberglass in mattress that she says harmed her children

By bellecarter // 2022-09-01

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Vanessa Gutierrez, a mother from Sacramento, California, sued Zinus Inc. for causing harm to her children. Zinus offered Gutierrez $1,000 in compensation, but she turned it down. The lawsuit stated that the fiberglass can escape, leading to health problems that include skin and respiratory tract irritation and persistent environmental contamination. In May 2019, Gutierrez saw a spike in sores and rashes on her baby, who was only five months old at the time. Her older child, who was nine years old back then, had asthma flare-ups. "The baby got the worst of it," Gutierrez said. "I thought she was overactive, but it was because she was feeling the burning. It looked like little paper cuts all over the back of her legs." The culprit, Gutierrez alleged, was the bed-in-a-box mattress made by Zinus. "All that time and safety was lost," she said. "I did not feel like we had a safe place for a long time after. I thought I was providing a good home for my daughters, but I purchased the poison we were sleeping on." Other mattress customers complained of having to throw out many items after finding the fibers all over their possessions. Some said the contamination occurred when they unzipped the mattress cover to wash it, causing the fiberglass to spread everywhere, All mattresses sold in the United States are required by federal law to contain some kind of fire barrier because the foams and fabrics used inside a mattress are very volatile materials. However, if fiberglass particles get free from your mattress, they can wreak havoc on your house and health. Fiberglass is a cheap option for mattress brands to use in place of potentially harmful chemicals. The fiberglass fire barrier will consist of very thin shards woven into some kind of sock, either as part of the cover or a secondary cover. The material is likened to asbestos, the name given to six unique minerals – chrysotile, amosite, crocidolite, anthophyllite, tremolite and actinolite – that occur naturally in the environment as bundles of fibers that can be separated into thin, durable threads for use in commercial and industrial applications. Fiberglass and asbestos are resistant to heat, fire and chemicals, and do not conduct electricity. (Related: Fire retardant chemicals used in your mattress linked to 74% rise in thyroid cancer tumors.) Unfortunately, both can also cause cancer. A rare and aggressive cancer called mesothelioma is almost exclusively caused by asbestos exposure, but animal studies have also linked it to fiberglass. Asbestos also causes a progressive lung disease called asbestosis.

Study says fiberglass strands are potentially inhalable

A study published in the International Journal of Environmental Research and Public Health in February by the Department of Public Health in California found that about one percent of the fiberglass strands migrated from the innermost layer to the outside of the mattress, "representing a potential risk of consumer exposure if the zipper on the outer cover is opened." According to the paper, fiberglass strands "are potentially inhalable into the nose, mouth, and throat, but are likely too large to penetrate deeper into the lungs." Bobbi Wilding, executive director of Clean and Healthy New York, told the Times there is no law that says that a company has to tell you every single thing that's in a mattress. "So whatever they tell you is what they're choosing to tell you, and that leaves people incredibly vulnerable because you have to just rely on what they say," he warned. Zinus still claimed the material is not considered hazardous by the Consumer Product Safety Commission. This was contradicted by James Radcliffe, the personal injury lawyer with Cueto Law, which represents Gutierrez and others suing the company. "It is not hyperbole to say that this has ravaged thousands of individuals' lives from across the United States," he said. Visit CancerCauses.news for more news related to materials that can cause cancer. Watch the below video that talks about the chemical offgassing of memory foam mattresses. This video is from the Natural News channel on Brighteon.com.

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Study says fiberglass strands are potentially inhalable

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