13 ms·

3M is paying $5.5B to resolve 300k lawsuits over defective combat earplugs

ericcumbee 3y ago
I probably should not. But I still laugh when my father who has service related hearing loss heard about this lawsuit and his reaction was “They give them earplugs now?”
aabhay 3y ago
The reality seems even worse. 1M+ cases of tinnitus or hearing loss linked to these earplugs, claims increasing double digits YoY.
- Workaccount2 3y ago
  The reality of these lawsuits is that everyone with an impairment who ever used or plausibly used said product in the past will put out their hand for a payout. Is everyone lying in these suits? No. Are large numbers of people lying? Yes. It's like if dell keyboards were linked to arthritis. Suddenly everyone with arthritis is saying they used a dell keyboard for 15 years. They don't have to mention that everyone in their family going back 3 generations had arthritis.
  - aabhay 3y ago
    But don’t you think that’s the first thing that 3M’s counsel looked at to try and prove their innocence? Take the veteran incidence of hearing less divided by the population level incidence of hearing loss and see if that ratio went up after the introduction of 3M earbuds? And if there’s a significant change there then it’s likely that the earbuds were defective by design or there were manufacturing issues. At that point everyone who was exposed to that phenomenon DOES deserve the payout, as there’s a plausible risk that the earbuds worsened it.
    - deleted 3y ago
      [deleted]
    - Workaccount2 3y ago
      Of course they run statistical analysis, but you cannot apply those methods to a case by case evaluation. The stats just let 3M know how hard they are gonna get screwed, and it's not like they are totally innocent anyway. >At that point everyone who was exposed to that phenomenon DOES deserve the payout That's the crux right there. The only evidence of being exposed in many of the cases is simply the person's word.
  - autoexec 3y ago
    I suspect there'll also be a ton of people who suffer from hearing damage because 3M hid the truth about their faulty product but who never join a class action, and that for many (if not most) who do try to get compensation whatever "payout" they get will be nothing compared to what they've lost. Hearing loss is probably something most of us will deal with at some point, and I've spoken to a lot of people who are already dealing with it and every one of them wishes they'd had more time with good hearing. It changes their daily lives and limits their ability to experience and interact with the world around them.
Caligatio 3y ago
I'm not claiming to be an earplug engineer but I feel like it shouldn't be hard to ensure your product literally does the one thing it's supposed to do: block sound. Particularly if you know that your earplugs are going to be extensively used in very loud environments, i.e. combat. I hope the $5.5B is well in excess of the military contract's price tag.
- brianwawok 3y ago
  Is it that simple? Ears come in all sizes and shapes, its possible you could make an earplug that worked great for you but not for some other people. Peeping at news articles though, there may have been an internal memo where they admitted to knowing there was a mistake - but they continued to sell them. Very likely THAT is where the huge fine came. see https://www.greenmatters.com/business/3m-ear-plug-lawsuit https://www.greenmatters.com/business/3m-ear-plug-lawsuit
  - TylerE 3y ago
    It is absolutely not that simple, for the reasons you name amongst others.
  - m00x 3y ago
    > Ears come in all sizes and shapes, its possible you could make an earplug that worked great for you but not for some other people. But then it wouldn't be a legal issue since all earplug vendors would have the same issue, and it wouldn't be feasible to have a design that corrects it.
- kube-system 3y ago
  That would be more simple... if that was what these were designed to do. One of the requirements for these custom-made ear plugs were was to allow the user to hear quiet conversations when used in a certain way.
  - netr0ute 3y ago
    There are these "audiophile" earphones from companies like Etymotic that are basically earplugs that block all frequencies equally and still make sound good enough to rival the top end of regular headphones, yet we don't hear of those kicking the bucket.
SoftTalker 3y ago
Weird, I use 3M earplugs when I'm in our data center and I think they are great. That's certainly not the level of noise as combat though. But they are much better than the squishy orange foam ones that the data center provides.
- AlgorithmicTime 3y ago
  [dead]
- data-ottawa 3y ago
  What sort of noise levels are in a data centre, or is the duration of noise the issue?
  - deleted 3y ago
    [deleted]
  - liveoneggs 3y ago
    datacenters are super loud (many many fans + giant HVAC, mostly) but you don't appreciate how loud they are because it's continuous and the frequencies are weird. Ear protection is definitely recommended if you are in one for days-at-a-time.
- kube-system 3y ago
  These lawsuits are about this particular design, which was designed specifically for the military: https://filecache.thecampaignroom.com/mr5cm_3mearplugfacts/177332/earplug-0715png.png https://filecache.thecampaignroom.com/mr5cm_3mearplugfacts/1...
- metaphor 3y ago
  Not all 3M earplugs are created equal. These[1][2][3], for example, are steaming piles of hot garbage. I carry a pair of 3M compact 21 dB NRR earmuffs because they're superior to these earplugs that are way too common in our production environment. The skull screws and corded variant are particularly egregious because they have a plastic stem embedded in the foam that can make insertion really uncomfortable and potentially hazardous if you slip or get smacked on the ear. [1] https://www.3m.com/3M/en_US/p/d/v000153037/ https://www.3m.com/3M/en_US/p/d/v000153037/ [2] https://www.3m.com/3M/en_US/p/d/v000181515/ https://www.3m.com/3M/en_US/p/d/v000181515/ [3] https://www.3m.com/3M/en_US/p/d/b00037662/ https://www.3m.com/3M/en_US/p/d/b00037662/
crazygringo 3y ago
Some context [1] that is missing from the article: > 3M has said the CAEv2 earplugs, which were designed in the late 1990s so soldiers could carry only one set of earplugs in multiple types of combat, aren’t faulty unless they are worn incorrectly and 3M said it worked in “close coordination” with the U.S. military to develop the design. > 3M tried to use the government-contractor defense, which allows companies to be protected if equipment made under a government contract is later found to be defective, but the court rejected the defense because there was never a written contract between the U.S. government and Aearo regarding the earplugs' design. Unfortunately, I can't find any clear answers around whether they do always work when worn correctly, whether they were manufactured to specification or not, or whether the specification was ultimately (verbally?) approved by the government. All of which makes it exceedingly hard for any of us to judge whether this was 3M being negligent in design or manufacturing, or the government being negligent in ordering something it knew or should have known was defective in advance, or the military being negligent in not ensuring soldiers were using them correctly, or multiple of these. Unless someone here has more sources? [1] https://www.forbes.com/sites/maryroeloffs/2023/08/27/3m-may-settle-lawsuits-over-defective-military-earplugs-for-over-55-billion-report-says/ https://www.forbes.com/sites/maryroeloffs/2023/08/27/3m-may-...
- 1970-01-01 3y ago
  It sounds like (pun intended) one side of them was not working as described. The green end was designed to block out all sound. The yellow end, signaling “whisper mode,” purported to block out loud sound — but allowed the user to hear quieter noises, like conversations. My source is hear (hah): https://www.cnbc.com/2023/03/15/3m-legal-battle-combat-grade-earplugs.html https://www.cnbc.com/2023/03/15/3m-legal-battle-combat-grade...
  - crazygringo 3y ago
    Thanks for that. A lot of interesting details: > “The purpose of the creation of [the Combat Arms earplugs] was to collaborate with the military to solve one of the longest-standing problems they have had, that soldiers won’t wear their hearing protection around loud noises and in combat,” Rucker said. > Rucker said the plugs were designed in collaboration with the U.S. military and tested by the Air Force, Army, National Institute for Occupational Safety and Health, and others. > “3M has purposefully skewed this data by relying on hearing standards that do not measure frequencies most affected by noise, concealing the hearing damage suffered by veterans,” said Bryan Aylstock and Chris Seeger, co-lead counsel for the service members and veterans, in a joint statement. > 3M disagreed with those claims, telling CNBC: “The data support what 3M has maintained throughout this litigation: the Combat Arms Earplugs version two were safe and effective to use. This has been confirmed by every independent, third-party organization that has tested the product, including the Army Research Lab, the Air Force Research lab, NIOSH, and others.” Ultimately, whose job should it be to determine whether or not they're defective? If the military tested them in advance and determined they met standards, and they were manufactured identically to what the military approved, should 3M be the one held responsible?
nimbius 3y ago
tv commercial: "if you or a loved one..." veteran: "what?" tv commercial: "served in the military between..." veteran: "served a delicious military bean?" tv commercial: "you may be entitled to significant compensation..." veteran: "I knew those dang earplugs wrecked my hearing but i didnt know people were eating them...i guess that explains the significant constipation..."
- bkartal 3y ago
  redditor: anything more original? common citizen: vow that is a good one!
gochi 3y ago
[flagged]
- FredPret 3y ago
  I feel your frustration. The people responsible should be punished - millions of lives are f-ed up in some way now. However, the market has financially punished this company heavily. Look at their recent profit (/massive loss) graph: valustox.com/MMM I think this is due to money being set aside for this fine. But their stock isn't exactly booming either - probably also due to this. EDIT: Looks like they made just under $2B in profit per quarter, and now a $7B loss in one quarter. They have quite a lot of debt, so this isn't the easiest blow to absorb, but they should be able to afford this without going under.
  - skyyler 3y ago
    >However, the market has financially punished this company heavily. If I caused even three people to become deaf through gross negligence, I'd expect to see jailtime. Lost profit isn't a punishment to the execs that OK'd this shit, they still have jobs; very lucrative jobs, even.
    - sokoloff 3y ago
      In the US, as long as you did it with a vehicle that you knew did not meet road safety standards and were sober at the time, I think you'd be in for a modest civil penalty (maybe even entirely covered by insurance) and no jail time.
    - FredPret 3y ago
      Lost profit punishes 3M. Those employees directly responsible for this should be punished as well.
  - wahnfrieden 3y ago
    [flagged]
    - 3y ago
PerryUlyssesCox 3y ago
3M also knows that many of the claimants are full of it - but a court would still side in favor of veterans so it makes sense to settle the cases. "Nearly a quarter of the plaintiffs with impairment under either AMA or WHO standards reported their condition in hearing tests before they ever used the Combat Arms earplugs" "Under WHO and National Institute of Health standards, more than 85% of plaintiffs have normal hearing."
- hammock 3y ago
  >"Under WHO and National Institute of Health standards, more than 85% of plaintiffs have normal hearing." If a device degrades your hearing from supernormal to just normal, or from high-normal to low-normal, is that not still damage?
  - IG_Semmelweiss 3y ago
    IANAL , but unless you have a reference point to start with , I don't think you could prove damages. normal is a normal range, unless you can prove your "new" normal is sufficiently worse than what you started with
    - hammock 3y ago
      It sounds like nearly 25% of people have a reference point to start with to prove that their new normal is sufficiently worse than what they started with: "Nearly a quarter of the plaintiffs ... reported their condition in hearing tests before they ever used the Combat Arms earplugs." That would seem to mean they have a "before" measurement, and can now test to get an "after" measurement.
      - snypher 3y ago
        I read that as the "condition" was hearing loss, implying it wasn't caused by the CA plugs.
    - deleted 3y ago
      [deleted]
iramiller 3y ago
I’ve used the shaped orange foam 3M ear plugs extensively while riding a motorcycle. The wind noise is extremely bad for you given the duration and surprisingly high decibels. One interesting thing I have noticed is that these plugs are extremely sensitive to being inserted correctly and despite extensive experience and good technique (which for me involves two hands, one to insert and one to pull the top of my ear for alignment) I still find the need to reinsert plugs on occasion. Unfortunately the poor fit isn’t obvious until I am on the road at speed when the sound volume is higher than it should be. If this same situation arises in combat I can easily imagine that the higher intensity of noises would cause hearing damage far sooner and in addition it seems unlikely soldiers would call for a timeout to fix their ear plugs.
- Cthulhu_ 3y ago
  I've got flange-shaped earplugs for the motorcycle, they seem to be just fine. Pulling up the ear is good practice for any kind of earplug though, I presume it straightens out the ear canal or something like that, I've used it for audio earbuds as well for a long time. If they fall out, get different ones. My dad had custom molded ones for his job (in metalwork), but that was well after the damage was done. He had tinnitus and he's now finally budged and got himself some subtle hearing aids.
  - idiotsecant 3y ago
    You can do the custom-molded ones yourself now, I had some for motorcycle riding and they worked very well. Unfortunately the ambulance cut them off of me when I got in a wreck so they are toast now, but they did their job great up until then! I used https://earfuze.com/ https://earfuze.com/ but I'm sure there are better ones out now.
- dharmab 3y ago
  I switched from the 3M plugs to Pinlock plugs for most riding. The Pinlock ones are suitable for around town, twisties and short highway runs, but allow me to hear engines, sirens, conversations, etc. They slide in easily with a little water. I still use the foamies for long road trips.
not_legal_yoda 3y ago
Does it make more sense to sue on your own in cases like this instead of going with the class action lawsuit in order to score a larger settlement? Edit: clarity Edit 2: From the article "$265 million: Total awarded to 13 plaintiffs who have sued over the earplugs to date" --> average of $20 million per settlement. At $5.5B for 300k lawsuits the result is an average of 18k per settlement??!! That appears to be a dramatic difference to the individual lawsuits.
- deleted 3y ago
  [deleted]
- mensetmanusman 3y ago
  At one point the potential liability was for more than the US GDP, for a product the military still uses and says works…
Blackthorn 3y ago
This whole thing has soured my opinion of 3m ppe products as a whole to the point that I look at my respirator questionably. Does anyone know other companies that produce reliable respirators?
talldatethrow 3y ago
Any gun enthusiast that has ever tried to take friends shooting knows how hard it is to get people to wear earplugs correctly, especially the foam ones. I'd say about 75% of guys do it wrong but will fix it if you show them how. Basically 100% of women I have taken shooting hate ear plugs and it's almost a relationship argument trying to get them to install them correctly.
- crazygringo 3y ago
  Now I'm curious, can you point to what most people are doing wrong, and what leads people to hate doing it right? (Does it cause pain or something? What's the resistance?) Even if just a link or a video.
  - rascul 3y ago
    Here is how to properly use the inexpensive soft foam ear plugs: https://www.cdc.gov/niosh/mining/content/earplug.html https://www.cdc.gov/niosh/mining/content/earplug.html What I often see people do is skip all that and just stuff it in the ear until it doesn't fall out. This does not get a proper seal. It might still be better than nothing but I doubt it protects much when used incorrectly.
  - Rebelgecko 3y ago
    The basic steps to doing it properly are 1. Roll the earplug to compress it (similar to if you've ever made a snake out of play-dough). Most people do this properly but some people just immediately try to jam the earplugs in while they're flaccid, which prevents them from inserting very far. 2. While inserting the earplug, use your opposite hand to pull on your ear (eg use your left hand over your head to yank your right ear up a bit). This helps line up your ear canal. Most people don't do this 3. Hold the earplug in place for 10-30 seconds, so that the foam you compressed in step 1 has time to reexpand and lock in. I don't think I've ever seen someone actually do this step. IMO the move for new shooters (especially indoors, where IMO it's a good idea for everyone) is to double up on ear pro. Use ear plugs in addition to muffs (bonus points for ANC muffs with amplification, so you don't have to shout). It'll reduce the sensory overload and physical discomfort that some people experience.
rightbyte 3y ago
Has anyone tried those? Are they worse than normal cheap foam ones? I have never had any ear plugs that I feel is sufficient for gun shots.
nsxwolf 3y ago
I've brought these to the range but I could never even get the damned things in my ears so I just used regular foam plugs.
exabrial 3y ago
The vast majority of vets I've heard talk about this admit they never actually used the ear plugs in combat... basically when things start happening they weren't reaching for earplugs... The real problem is the military provided no _practical_ combat hearing protection at all for the longest time.
- warner25 3y ago
  Yeah, one of the problems with combat is that it's unpredictable. Over much of the last 20 years, we (American troops) rarely had the initiative. Instead we sat, drove, or walked around essentially waiting to get attacked. Deliberate raids were done almost exclusively by a small cadre of Special Operations folks. So the choice was to wear hearing protection all the time, which seems unreasonable[1], or not be wearing it at all when a rocket or mortar randomly impacted or a car bomb exploded nearby or a fight broke out. Of course, I'd also bet that most people didn't have their hearing damaged "in combat" because most people didn't see combat, or certainly didn't see much of it. I would bet that most damage was done on live-fire ranges in training, where we have whole days of rounds popping off, or working around aircraft, where there's no excuse for not wearing hearing protection. [1] Although we eventually mandated eye protection whenever people were outdoors in Afghanistan. Getting everyone to comply with that policy, as a leader, was hard.
- globular-toast 3y ago
  Also aren't the kind of people that go into the army also the kind of people who wouldn't wear ear plugs because it's "uncool"?
esaym 3y ago
The sad thing is, the yellow 3m earsoft version (https://www.3m.com/3M/en_US/p/d/b00017636/ https://www.3m.com/3M/en_US/p/d/b00017636/) would probably have been fine in all cases. I've been using those for nearly 20 years. I wear them to sleep, for yard work, shooting, and even a brief stint in aviation. Typically get a year of use out of one pair before I have to change out.
ttpphd 3y ago
Protecting service members is a real challenge. I have a couple of papers investigating hearing protection and voice use in noisy military environments. https://journals.lww.com/ear-hearing/abstract/2021/11000/evaluation_of_extended_wear_hearing_aids_as_a.8.aspx https://journals.lww.com/ear-hearing/abstract/2021/11000/eva... In this study, we evaluated whether an extended-wear hearing aid could feasibly work as a hearing protection device. There were some issues, especially comfort, but perhaps once those issues are solved, extended-wear hearing aids might be a way to protect hearing while still enabling people to hear important situational and environmental sounds even if they have some hearing loss. https://pubs.asha.org/doi/full/10.1044/2023_JSLHR-23-00150 https://pubs.asha.org/doi/full/10.1044/2023_JSLHR-23-00150 In this study we found an important effect of noise exposures and temporary threshold shifts on voice problems among service members. To quote myself: "A fourth hypothesis is that the relationship between voice concerns, hearing difficulties, and TTS arises from the trade-offs of wearing hearing protection in high-level noise environments. The use of hearing protection presents a challenge when selecting an appropriate vocal loudness level for effective communication (Brungart et al., 2012; Vaziri, 2018). In particular, individuals who wear hearing protection in high-noise environments tend to speak quietly, making them difficult to understand. People may overcompensate by talking too loudly (placing their vocal health at risk) or by removing their hearing protection so they can communicate more effectively (thus increasing TTS and placing their hearing at risk)."
delta-26 3y ago
They are going to pay more than that, nothing is settled and no one has to accept that. Here is some reading about the details that should make your blood boil: https://prospect.org/power/monopoly-misrepresentation-and-malpractice-3m-earplugs/ https://prospect.org/power/monopoly-misrepresentation-and-ma...

I probably should not. But I still laugh when my father who has service related hearing loss heard about this lawsuit and his reaction was “They give them earplugs now?”

aabhay 3y ago

The reality seems even worse. 1M+ cases of tinnitus or hearing loss linked to these earplugs, claims increasing double digits YoY.

Workaccount2 3y ago
The reality of these lawsuits is that everyone with an impairment who ever used or plausibly used said product in the past will put out their hand for a payout. Is everyone lying in these suits? No. Are large numbers of people lying? Yes. It's like if dell keyboards were linked to arthritis. Suddenly everyone with arthritis is saying they used a dell keyboard for 15 years. They don't have to mention that everyone in their family going back 3 generations had arthritis.
- aabhay 3y ago
  But don’t you think that’s the first thing that 3M’s counsel looked at to try and prove their innocence? Take the veteran incidence of hearing less divided by the population level incidence of hearing loss and see if that ratio went up after the introduction of 3M earbuds? And if there’s a significant change there then it’s likely that the earbuds were defective by design or there were manufacturing issues. At that point everyone who was exposed to that phenomenon DOES deserve the payout, as there’s a plausible risk that the earbuds worsened it.
  - deleted 3y ago
    [deleted]
  - Workaccount2 3y ago
    Of course they run statistical analysis, but you cannot apply those methods to a case by case evaluation. The stats just let 3M know how hard they are gonna get screwed, and it's not like they are totally innocent anyway. >At that point everyone who was exposed to that phenomenon DOES deserve the payout That's the crux right there. The only evidence of being exposed in many of the cases is simply the person's word.
- autoexec 3y ago
  I suspect there'll also be a ton of people who suffer from hearing damage because 3M hid the truth about their faulty product but who never join a class action, and that for many (if not most) who do try to get compensation whatever "payout" they get will be nothing compared to what they've lost. Hearing loss is probably something most of us will deal with at some point, and I've spoken to a lot of people who are already dealing with it and every one of them wishes they'd had more time with good hearing. It changes their daily lives and limits their ability to experience and interact with the world around them.

Caligatio 3y ago

I'm not claiming to be an earplug engineer but I feel like it shouldn't be hard to ensure your product literally does the one thing it's supposed to do: block sound. Particularly if you know that your earplugs are going to be extensively used in very loud environments, i.e. combat. I hope the $5.5B is well in excess of the military contract's price tag.

brianwawok 3y ago
Is it that simple? Ears come in all sizes and shapes, its possible you could make an earplug that worked great for you but not for some other people. Peeping at news articles though, there may have been an internal memo where they admitted to knowing there was a mistake - but they continued to sell them. Very likely THAT is where the huge fine came. see https://www.greenmatters.com/business/3m-ear-plug-lawsuit https://www.greenmatters.com/business/3m-ear-plug-lawsuit
- TylerE 3y ago
  It is absolutely not that simple, for the reasons you name amongst others.
- m00x 3y ago
  > Ears come in all sizes and shapes, its possible you could make an earplug that worked great for you but not for some other people. But then it wouldn't be a legal issue since all earplug vendors would have the same issue, and it wouldn't be feasible to have a design that corrects it.
kube-system 3y ago
That would be more simple... if that was what these were designed to do. One of the requirements for these custom-made ear plugs were was to allow the user to hear quiet conversations when used in a certain way.
- netr0ute 3y ago
  There are these "audiophile" earphones from companies like Etymotic that are basically earplugs that block all frequencies equally and still make sound good enough to rival the top end of regular headphones, yet we don't hear of those kicking the bucket.

SoftTalker 3y ago

Weird, I use 3M earplugs when I'm in our data center and I think they are great. That's certainly not the level of noise as combat though. But they are much better than the squishy orange foam ones that the data center provides.

AlgorithmicTime 3y ago
[dead]
data-ottawa 3y ago
What sort of noise levels are in a data centre, or is the duration of noise the issue?
- deleted 3y ago
  [deleted]
- liveoneggs 3y ago
  datacenters are super loud (many many fans + giant HVAC, mostly) but you don't appreciate how loud they are because it's continuous and the frequencies are weird. Ear protection is definitely recommended if you are in one for days-at-a-time.
kube-system 3y ago
These lawsuits are about this particular design, which was designed specifically for the military: https://filecache.thecampaignroom.com/mr5cm_3mearplugfacts/177332/earplug-0715png.png https://filecache.thecampaignroom.com/mr5cm_3mearplugfacts/1...
metaphor 3y ago
Not all 3M earplugs are created equal. These[1][2][3], for example, are steaming piles of hot garbage. I carry a pair of 3M compact 21 dB NRR earmuffs because they're superior to these earplugs that are way too common in our production environment. The skull screws and corded variant are particularly egregious because they have a plastic stem embedded in the foam that can make insertion really uncomfortable and potentially hazardous if you slip or get smacked on the ear. [1] https://www.3m.com/3M/en_US/p/d/v000153037/ https://www.3m.com/3M/en_US/p/d/v000153037/ [2] https://www.3m.com/3M/en_US/p/d/v000181515/ https://www.3m.com/3M/en_US/p/d/v000181515/ [3] https://www.3m.com/3M/en_US/p/d/b00037662/ https://www.3m.com/3M/en_US/p/d/b00037662/

crazygringo 3y ago

Some context [1] that is missing from the article: > 3M has said the CAEv2 earplugs, which were designed in the late 1990s so soldiers could carry only one set of earplugs in multiple types of combat, aren’t faulty unless they are worn incorrectly and 3M said it worked in “close coordination” with the U.S. military to develop the design. > 3M tried to use the government-contractor defense, which allows companies to be protected if equipment made under a government contract is later found to be defective, but the court rejected the defense because there was never a written contract between the U.S. government and Aearo regarding the earplugs' design. Unfortunately, I can't find any clear answers around whether they do always work when worn correctly, whether they were manufactured to specification or not, or whether the specification was ultimately (verbally?) approved by the government. All of which makes it exceedingly hard for any of us to judge whether this was 3M being negligent in design or manufacturing, or the government being negligent in ordering something it knew or should have known was defective in advance, or the military being negligent in not ensuring soldiers were using them correctly, or multiple of these. Unless someone here has more sources? [1] https://www.forbes.com/sites/maryroeloffs/2023/08/27/3m-may-settle-lawsuits-over-defective-military-earplugs-for-over-55-billion-report-says/ https://www.forbes.com/sites/maryroeloffs/2023/08/27/3m-may-...

1970-01-01 3y ago
It sounds like (pun intended) one side of them was not working as described. The green end was designed to block out all sound. The yellow end, signaling “whisper mode,” purported to block out loud sound — but allowed the user to hear quieter noises, like conversations. My source is hear (hah): https://www.cnbc.com/2023/03/15/3m-legal-battle-combat-grade-earplugs.html https://www.cnbc.com/2023/03/15/3m-legal-battle-combat-grade...
- crazygringo 3y ago
  Thanks for that. A lot of interesting details: > “The purpose of the creation of [the Combat Arms earplugs] was to collaborate with the military to solve one of the longest-standing problems they have had, that soldiers won’t wear their hearing protection around loud noises and in combat,” Rucker said. > Rucker said the plugs were designed in collaboration with the U.S. military and tested by the Air Force, Army, National Institute for Occupational Safety and Health, and others. > “3M has purposefully skewed this data by relying on hearing standards that do not measure frequencies most affected by noise, concealing the hearing damage suffered by veterans,” said Bryan Aylstock and Chris Seeger, co-lead counsel for the service members and veterans, in a joint statement. > 3M disagreed with those claims, telling CNBC: “The data support what 3M has maintained throughout this litigation: the Combat Arms Earplugs version two were safe and effective to use. This has been confirmed by every independent, third-party organization that has tested the product, including the Army Research Lab, the Air Force Research lab, NIOSH, and others.” Ultimately, whose job should it be to determine whether or not they're defective? If the military tested them in advance and determined they met standards, and they were manufactured identically to what the military approved, should 3M be the one held responsible?

nimbius 3y ago

tv commercial: "if you or a loved one..." veteran: "what?" tv commercial: "served in the military between..." veteran: "served a delicious military bean?" tv commercial: "you may be entitled to significant compensation..." veteran: "I knew those dang earplugs wrecked my hearing but i didnt know people were eating them...i guess that explains the significant constipation..."

bkartal 3y ago
redditor: anything more original? common citizen: vow that is a good one!

gochi 3y ago

[flagged]

FredPret 3y ago
I feel your frustration. The people responsible should be punished - millions of lives are f-ed up in some way now. However, the market has financially punished this company heavily. Look at their recent profit (/massive loss) graph: valustox.com/MMM I think this is due to money being set aside for this fine. But their stock isn't exactly booming either - probably also due to this. EDIT: Looks like they made just under $2B in profit per quarter, and now a $7B loss in one quarter. They have quite a lot of debt, so this isn't the easiest blow to absorb, but they should be able to afford this without going under.
- skyyler 3y ago
  >However, the market has financially punished this company heavily. If I caused even three people to become deaf through gross negligence, I'd expect to see jailtime. Lost profit isn't a punishment to the execs that OK'd this shit, they still have jobs; very lucrative jobs, even.
  - sokoloff 3y ago
    In the US, as long as you did it with a vehicle that you knew did not meet road safety standards and were sober at the time, I think you'd be in for a modest civil penalty (maybe even entirely covered by insurance) and no jail time.
  - FredPret 3y ago
    Lost profit punishes 3M. Those employees directly responsible for this should be punished as well.
- wahnfrieden 3y ago
  [flagged]
  - 3y ago

PerryUlyssesCox 3y ago

3M also knows that many of the claimants are full of it - but a court would still side in favor of veterans so it makes sense to settle the cases. "Nearly a quarter of the plaintiffs with impairment under either AMA or WHO standards reported their condition in hearing tests before they ever used the Combat Arms earplugs" "Under WHO and National Institute of Health standards, more than 85% of plaintiffs have normal hearing."

hammock 3y ago
>"Under WHO and National Institute of Health standards, more than 85% of plaintiffs have normal hearing." If a device degrades your hearing from supernormal to just normal, or from high-normal to low-normal, is that not still damage?
- IG_Semmelweiss 3y ago
  IANAL , but unless you have a reference point to start with , I don't think you could prove damages. normal is a normal range, unless you can prove your "new" normal is sufficiently worse than what you started with
  - hammock 3y ago
    It sounds like nearly 25% of people have a reference point to start with to prove that their new normal is sufficiently worse than what they started with: "Nearly a quarter of the plaintiffs ... reported their condition in hearing tests before they ever used the Combat Arms earplugs." That would seem to mean they have a "before" measurement, and can now test to get an "after" measurement.
    - snypher 3y ago
      I read that as the "condition" was hearing loss, implying it wasn't caused by the CA plugs.
  - deleted 3y ago
    [deleted]

iramiller 3y ago

I’ve used the shaped orange foam 3M ear plugs extensively while riding a motorcycle. The wind noise is extremely bad for you given the duration and surprisingly high decibels. One interesting thing I have noticed is that these plugs are extremely sensitive to being inserted correctly and despite extensive experience and good technique (which for me involves two hands, one to insert and one to pull the top of my ear for alignment) I still find the need to reinsert plugs on occasion. Unfortunately the poor fit isn’t obvious until I am on the road at speed when the sound volume is higher than it should be. If this same situation arises in combat I can easily imagine that the higher intensity of noises would cause hearing damage far sooner and in addition it seems unlikely soldiers would call for a timeout to fix their ear plugs.

Cthulhu_ 3y ago
I've got flange-shaped earplugs for the motorcycle, they seem to be just fine. Pulling up the ear is good practice for any kind of earplug though, I presume it straightens out the ear canal or something like that, I've used it for audio earbuds as well for a long time. If they fall out, get different ones. My dad had custom molded ones for his job (in metalwork), but that was well after the damage was done. He had tinnitus and he's now finally budged and got himself some subtle hearing aids.
- idiotsecant 3y ago
  You can do the custom-molded ones yourself now, I had some for motorcycle riding and they worked very well. Unfortunately the ambulance cut them off of me when I got in a wreck so they are toast now, but they did their job great up until then! I used https://earfuze.com/ https://earfuze.com/ but I'm sure there are better ones out now.
dharmab 3y ago
I switched from the 3M plugs to Pinlock plugs for most riding. The Pinlock ones are suitable for around town, twisties and short highway runs, but allow me to hear engines, sirens, conversations, etc. They slide in easily with a little water. I still use the foamies for long road trips.

not_legal_yoda 3y ago

Does it make more sense to sue on your own in cases like this instead of going with the class action lawsuit in order to score a larger settlement? Edit: clarity Edit 2: From the article "$265 million: Total awarded to 13 plaintiffs who have sued over the earplugs to date" --> average of $20 million per settlement. At $5.5B for 300k lawsuits the result is an average of 18k per settlement??!! That appears to be a dramatic difference to the individual lawsuits.

deleted 3y ago
[deleted]
mensetmanusman 3y ago
At one point the potential liability was for more than the US GDP, for a product the military still uses and says works…

Blackthorn 3y ago

This whole thing has soured my opinion of 3m ppe products as a whole to the point that I look at my respirator questionably. Does anyone know other companies that produce reliable respirators?

talldatethrow 3y ago

Any gun enthusiast that has ever tried to take friends shooting knows how hard it is to get people to wear earplugs correctly, especially the foam ones. I'd say about 75% of guys do it wrong but will fix it if you show them how. Basically 100% of women I have taken shooting hate ear plugs and it's almost a relationship argument trying to get them to install them correctly.

crazygringo 3y ago
Now I'm curious, can you point to what most people are doing wrong, and what leads people to hate doing it right? (Does it cause pain or something? What's the resistance?) Even if just a link or a video.
- rascul 3y ago
  Here is how to properly use the inexpensive soft foam ear plugs: https://www.cdc.gov/niosh/mining/content/earplug.html https://www.cdc.gov/niosh/mining/content/earplug.html What I often see people do is skip all that and just stuff it in the ear until it doesn't fall out. This does not get a proper seal. It might still be better than nothing but I doubt it protects much when used incorrectly.
- Rebelgecko 3y ago
  The basic steps to doing it properly are 1. Roll the earplug to compress it (similar to if you've ever made a snake out of play-dough). Most people do this properly but some people just immediately try to jam the earplugs in while they're flaccid, which prevents them from inserting very far. 2. While inserting the earplug, use your opposite hand to pull on your ear (eg use your left hand over your head to yank your right ear up a bit). This helps line up your ear canal. Most people don't do this 3. Hold the earplug in place for 10-30 seconds, so that the foam you compressed in step 1 has time to reexpand and lock in. I don't think I've ever seen someone actually do this step. IMO the move for new shooters (especially indoors, where IMO it's a good idea for everyone) is to double up on ear pro. Use ear plugs in addition to muffs (bonus points for ANC muffs with amplification, so you don't have to shout). It'll reduce the sensory overload and physical discomfort that some people experience.

rightbyte 3y ago

Has anyone tried those? Are they worse than normal cheap foam ones? I have never had any ear plugs that I feel is sufficient for gun shots.

nsxwolf 3y ago

I've brought these to the range but I could never even get the damned things in my ears so I just used regular foam plugs.

exabrial 3y ago

The vast majority of vets I've heard talk about this admit they never actually used the ear plugs in combat... basically when things start happening they weren't reaching for earplugs... The real problem is the military provided no _practical_ combat hearing protection at all for the longest time.

warner25 3y ago
Yeah, one of the problems with combat is that it's unpredictable. Over much of the last 20 years, we (American troops) rarely had the initiative. Instead we sat, drove, or walked around essentially waiting to get attacked. Deliberate raids were done almost exclusively by a small cadre of Special Operations folks. So the choice was to wear hearing protection all the time, which seems unreasonable[1], or not be wearing it at all when a rocket or mortar randomly impacted or a car bomb exploded nearby or a fight broke out. Of course, I'd also bet that most people didn't have their hearing damaged "in combat" because most people didn't see combat, or certainly didn't see much of it. I would bet that most damage was done on live-fire ranges in training, where we have whole days of rounds popping off, or working around aircraft, where there's no excuse for not wearing hearing protection. [1] Although we eventually mandated eye protection whenever people were outdoors in Afghanistan. Getting everyone to comply with that policy, as a leader, was hard.
globular-toast 3y ago
Also aren't the kind of people that go into the army also the kind of people who wouldn't wear ear plugs because it's "uncool"?

esaym 3y ago

The sad thing is, the yellow 3m earsoft version (https://www.3m.com/3M/en_US/p/d/b00017636/ https://www.3m.com/3M/en_US/p/d/b00017636/) would probably have been fine in all cases. I've been using those for nearly 20 years. I wear them to sleep, for yard work, shooting, and even a brief stint in aviation. Typically get a year of use out of one pair before I have to change out.

ttpphd 3y ago

Protecting service members is a real challenge. I have a couple of papers investigating hearing protection and voice use in noisy military environments. https://journals.lww.com/ear-hearing/abstract/2021/11000/evaluation_of_extended_wear_hearing_aids_as_a.8.aspx https://journals.lww.com/ear-hearing/abstract/2021/11000/eva... In this study, we evaluated whether an extended-wear hearing aid could feasibly work as a hearing protection device. There were some issues, especially comfort, but perhaps once those issues are solved, extended-wear hearing aids might be a way to protect hearing while still enabling people to hear important situational and environmental sounds even if they have some hearing loss. https://pubs.asha.org/doi/full/10.1044/2023_JSLHR-23-00150 https://pubs.asha.org/doi/full/10.1044/2023_JSLHR-23-00150 In this study we found an important effect of noise exposures and temporary threshold shifts on voice problems among service members. To quote myself: "A fourth hypothesis is that the relationship between voice concerns, hearing difficulties, and TTS arises from the trade-offs of wearing hearing protection in high-level noise environments. The use of hearing protection presents a challenge when selecting an appropriate vocal loudness level for effective communication (Brungart et al., 2012; Vaziri, 2018). In particular, individuals who wear hearing protection in high-noise environments tend to speak quietly, making them difficult to understand. People may overcompensate by talking too loudly (placing their vocal health at risk) or by removing their hearing protection so they can communicate more effectively (thus increasing TTS and placing their hearing at risk)."

delta-26 3y ago

They are going to pay more than that, nothing is settled and no one has to accept that. Here is some reading about the details that should make your blood boil: https://prospect.org/power/monopoly-misrepresentation-and-malpractice-3m-earplugs/ https://prospect.org/power/monopoly-misrepresentation-and-ma...