Air Purifier Gets Another Critical Blow

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?”