To add onto this, this article describes the absurdity of this situation and complete indifference to human life at Philips. Notably, they kept using the same problematic foam for over a decade after they knew it was dangerous.

https://www.propublica.org/article/philips-kept-warnings-abo...

> In June 2010, Philips found that a machine sent back to the company by a customer was contaminated with “foam particles,” FDA records show. Rather than alerting the government as federal law required, records reveal that the company kept the report about the problem in-house for the next decade.

> A similar report came in the following year, describing another CPAP with “black contamination.” That, too, was not turned over to federal regulators.

> Another report was also held back, this one from a patient who found particles in the tube that carries air to the nose and mouth. A complaint two years later described a 3-year-old girl who was using a ventilator with a filter that had turned black.

> By the end of 2014 — about six years after Philips started using the foam — more than 500 reports from health care workers, patients and others had flooded the company in a pattern that would not be revealed to the government or the public for years, the records show.

> [...]

> In 2015, Philips was moving to dominate the market, but the foam problem threatened the momentum. That year, a company engineer questioned the supplier, emailing, “Have you ever seen this occur to the foam?” company records show.

> Two and a half years later, as new complaints came in from Australia, Philips scientists were summoned to a series of emergency meetings outside Pittsburgh to come up with a plan. The day after one of the sessions, another engineer detailed the safety risk in an email to the foam supplier.

> “The material sheds and is pulled into the ventilator air path. As you can imagine, this is not a good situation for our users,” engineer Vincent Testa wrote that April, sharing photos of the foam breaking apart. “I flagged this message with high importance since we are addressing a potential safety concern.”

> Without alerting the FDA or the public, the company started replacing the foam in some ventilators but once again left the vast majority of machines untouched, including the widely used DreamStation, FDA records show. Testa did not respond to interview requests.

> Customers weren’t told even as debris turned up on their bedsheets, pillows and faces.

> [...]

> In the spring of 2020, as the COVID-19 virus raged and thousands died, Philips boosted production of another ventilator to help ease the burden on overwhelmed intensive care units.

> These, too, were built with the same foam.

> Over the course of the year, operating profits from ventilators, CPAP machines and other devices soared to about $800 million, more than double what they were the year before, according to reports by Philips’ parent company.

> Response from customers “remains very positive, resulting in market share gains,” Royal Philips’ then-CEO Frans van Houten said during a fourth-quarter earnings call.

> During the call, van Houten made no mention of the turmoil inside the company, including internal studies that showed the DreamStation had failed emissions testing for volatile organic compounds. The chemicals can be found in everyday products, such as gasoline, paints and pesticides, but in breathing machines, the fumes can be inhaled for hours at a stretch.

> [...]

> In April 2021, Philips unveiled the DreamStation 2, a sleeker and more advanced model with a color touch screen and more personalized settings. Another change separated the new model from the old one: Philips chose different foam, one that would hold up in heat and humidity.

> With the launch of the new device, the company’s stock price reached a high of $61 a share — more than double what it was five years earlier.

> It was only then, during a late-April earnings call with investors, that Philips for the first time revealed that the foam it had used for years in millions of machines was at risk of breaking down.

> “Regretfully, we have identified possible risks,” said then-CEO van Houten, adding that the company had set aside 250 million euros to deal with the problem. “We are taking proactive action here.”

> Van Houten went on to reassure investors: “The device is safe to be continued to use to the best of our knowledge at this time.”

> [...]

> As news of the problem spread, customers and others stepped forward by the thousands, describing emergency room visits and sudden illnesses in reports submitted to Philips and the government. The reports detailed nearly 2,000 cases of cancer, 600 liver and kidney illnesses and 17,000 respiratory ailments.

> Philips said the reports of illnesses and injuries are not evidence that its devices caused harm. But six medical experts who spoke to ProPublica and the Post-Gazette said the complaints are an indisputable indicator of a sprawling public health crisis. They said more harm is likely to emerge in coming years, much as the effects of tobacco and asbestos only became clear decades later.

Emphasis mine.