Lawsuit Information Center

Between 2013 and 2024, contaminated Olympus duodenoscopes infected hundreds of patients at hospitals across the United States. At least 35 people died. The infections were caused by drug-resistant bacteria that no antibiotic could reliably kill. The patients had gone into the hospital for routine diagnostic procedures–gallstone evaluations, pancreatic biopsies, bile duct imaging–and came out with infections that would destroy their organs, land them in intensive care for months, or kill them outright.

The remarkable part is not that it happened. Medical devices fail. Infections occur. What makes the Olympus duodenoscope litigation extraordinary is that the company knew. Olympus knew its scopes could not be adequately cleaned. Olympus knew that bacteria were surviving the sterilization process and spreading from patient to patient. Olympus knew that people were dying. And for years, the company did almost nothing.

This page explains what went wrong, why it went wrong, and the legal options available to patients and families harmed by contaminated Olympus scopes. It is long. It is detailed. It is written for people who want to understand not just the claims being filed, but the science, the regulatory failures, and the corporate decisions that turned a solvable engineering problem into a public health catastrophe.

If you swallowed a wire bristle from a grill brush or found a metal fragment in your food after cleaning your grill, you are not imagining things or overreacting. A wire bristle from a grill cleaning brush can break off during normal use, stick to a burger or hot dog without anyone seeing it, and end up in your throat, stomach, or intestines. The injuries range from sharp throat pain and trouble swallowing to bowel perforation requiring emergency surgery.

In early 2026, the U.S. Consumer Product Safety Commission recalled more than 13 million wire grill brushes from Weber and Nexgrill after confirming that detached bristles were sticking to food and causing serious internal injuries. If you or someone in your family was hurt, there may be a product liability claim against the manufacturer.

The CDC warned about this hazard years ago, and in early 2026, the U.S. Consumer Product Safety Commission announced two massive recalls involving Weber and Nexgrill wire bristle brushes because detached bristles can stick to food and cause serious internal injuries that may require surgery.