EPA Fines Logitech $261k for Unsubstantiated Bacteria-Busting Keyboard Claims

Posted 09/29/2011 at 10:15am | by Brad Chacos

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People use the term “blast from the past” a little too lightly for our tastes. For many folks, stumbling across an old pair of bellbottoms or a Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles rerun – not that new show, the awesome one from the late 80s – constitutes as a blast from the past. Logitech just learned a whole meaning of the phrase; the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency just slammed the company with a $261,000 fine for “making unsubstantiated health claims” about its now-discontinued MX3200 keyboard/mouse combo.

According to the EPA, Logitech incorporated a silver compound into the MX3200 to help prevent disintegration. However, the company then made claims that the keyboard killed microbes and bacteria (presumably because the AgION compound used is a registered pesticide). Unfortunately for Logitech, you can’t just go around making claims like that without proof. While the company immediately stopped making bacteria-busting claims when the EPA contacted them about the issue, it still wasn’t enough to dodge a fine.

“Unverified public health claims can lead people to believe they are protected from disease-causing organisms when, in fact, they are not,” said Jared Blumenfeld, the EPA’s Regional Administrator for the Pacific Southwest, in the EPA’s press release. “The EPA takes very seriously its responsibility to enforce the law against companies that make such claims for their products.”