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3M heads to trial in ‘existential’ $143B forever-chemicals litigation

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Re: 3M heads to trial in ‘existential’ $143B forever-chemicals litigation

#41

Post by gwright »

NickC25 wrote: post #15
delfinom wrote: post #6

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Government bailout, it's clearly too big to fail

Exactly. They should be nationalized. If they are the only producer of a number of strategically important materials, nationalization needs to happen. The private markets are great, but cannot be trusted to clean up after their own mess - they have proven this time and time and time again. The taxpayers will ultimately be on the hook for this payout, and that's simply unacceptable. If the public has to bail out this…

Right, because nationalized industries/companies have a wonderful track record of environmental concern and practices?

I'm not sure what the solution is to these problems (or this particular problem) but "nationalizing" producers certainly isn't one of them. Destroying 3M isn't one either.

I don't understand the approach to difficult problems that starts with thinking "the government" is effectively a magic wand.

Re: 3M heads to trial in ‘existential’ $143B forever-chemicals litigation

#42

Post by giraffe_lady »

rob-olmos wrote: post #21

3M is also in another lawsuit for defective earplugs supplied to the US military: https://www.forbes.com/advisor/legal/product-liability/3m-ea... Additional info: https://www.millerandzois.com/products-liability/3m-combat-a...

The difference in harm between these two transgressions is a few orders of magnitude at least.

Re: 3M heads to trial in ‘existential’ $143B forever-chemicals litigation

#43

Post by BiteCode_dev »

xen2xen1 wrote: post #13

The most depressing part of this? Stopping the creation of PFAS might help out kids or grandkids, but we're kind of screwed. Well, unless you give blood a lot?

Giving plasma is actually better if you want to remove PFAS.

And giving either is a good thing, so if this can mean people will give 2 or 3 times a year, everybody wins.

Re: 3M heads to trial in ‘existential’ $143B forever-chemicals litigation

#44

Post by RajT88 »

jackmott42 wrote: post #27
BSEdlMMldESB wrote: post #20

Earlier quoted context omitted.

disbanding this corporation doesn't undo decades of pollution either. I doubt very much that they're the only ones able to manufacture this stuff

The point isn't to undo the past, it is to make it clear to other companies that if they lie about safety they will face an existential threat too. Who are you people who feel compelled to defend mega corporations that screw people over? What is your psychology? What do you value in life? My goodness.

> The point isn't to undo the past, it is to make it clear to other companies that if they lie about safety they will face an existential threat too.

DuPont, while removed from the threat of this lawsuit, is guilty on plenty of counts of the same behavior with other chemicals.

I believe I've read articles about GE and Monsanto also knowing the health risks to their own employees and doing nothing about it. Let alone the dumping into public waterways.

$143 billion is hopefully the judgement which is levied, and hopefully the first of many.

Re: 3M heads to trial in ‘existential’ $143B forever-chemicals litigation

#45

Post by jquast »

hackernewds wrote: post #22
BSEdlMMldESB wrote: post #20

Earlier quoted context omitted.

disbanding this corporation doesn't undo decades of pollution either. I doubt very much that they're the only ones able to manufacture this stuff

But it will set a mighty example for others

Genuinely curious, would any money be extracted from the personal accounts of any executive employee that made these decisions, current or past, from any of these thousands of lawsuits?

Unless the decision-making folks have their personal wealth destroyed, they really haven’t anything to lose. I would expect the worst-case scenario is that their stock portfolios will need to be adjusted, by tax-loss harvesting their losses in 3m stocks as an opportunity to divest and rebalance their portfolios.

Re: 3M heads to trial in ‘existential’ $143B forever-chemicals litigation

#46

Post by bravoetch »

bcrosby95 wrote: post #29
deserialized wrote: post #18

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Oh well that excuses all of the poisoning, clearly

That's a pretty shitty response to an actual problem. Companies don't need to prove the safety of things like this. Look at bpa free. Most people don't even know that bpa free plastic tends to be just as bad, or potentially worse than bpa. The press doesn't give a shit I guess. Society went through its giant bpa panic and now it's tired of dealing with this so let's just ignore it and move onto the next thing. Ignora…

You're okay with companies not being responsible, but you want the press to help you out here? I feel the opposite. Companies should be responsible for poisoning us, and the press has zero to do with it.

Re: 3M heads to trial in ‘existential’ $143B forever-chemicals litigation

#47

Post by NickC25 »

gwright wrote: post #41
NickC25 wrote: post #15

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Exactly. They should be nationalized. If they are the only producer of a number of strategically important materials, nationalization needs to happen. The private markets are great, but cannot be trusted to clean up after their own mess - they have proven this time and time and time again. The taxpayers will ultimately be on the hook for this payout, and that's simply unacceptable. If the public has to bail out this…

Right, because nationalized industries/companies have a wonderful track record of environmental concern and practices? I'm not sure what the solution is to these problems (or this particular problem) but "nationalizing" producers certainly isn't one of them. Destroying 3M isn't one either. I don't understand the approach to difficult problems that starts with thinking "the government" is effectively a magic wand.

I'm not saying nationalized companies are great. I'm saying that if a company engages in such deceptive practices with materials that they know are toxic, and they fail to disclose that to the relevant parties (the government, and the people), they have no business being in business, as they are effectively externalizing the risk their products put on the rest of us.

Destroying the company is not the best idea, but there has to be a line society has to draw and be vigilant about defending it. Otherwise, you're going to just encourage more of this behavior...because the flip side is a really ugly precedent to set.

You want companies to use toxic chemicals in their products, lie about it, and when found out, just pay some fine and walk away like nothing happened?

No, there has to be a line where we say "you made a ton of money by lying to us and putting toxic chemicals in our air, our water, and our bodies. you're going to now pay that back with substantial interest, and be barred from ever being in a position of any level of corporate power whatsoever for the rest of your life". The taxpayer CAN NOT be the one to be on the hook for corporate misdeeds time and time again.

In countries like China, executives get disappeared for such hubris.

Re: 3M heads to trial in ‘existential’ $143B forever-chemicals litigation

#48

Post by npongratz »

BiteCode_dev wrote: post #43
xen2xen1 wrote: post #13

The most depressing part of this? Stopping the creation of PFAS might help out kids or grandkids, but we're kind of screwed. Well, unless you give blood a lot?

Giving plasma is actually better if you want to remove PFAS. And giving either is a good thing, so if this can mean people will give 2 or 3 times a year, everybody wins.

Suppose I give plasma or blood, and it removes PFAS from my body. Does it give those PFAS to the recipient of my plasma/blood?

Re: 3M heads to trial in ‘existential’ $143B forever-chemicals litigation

#49

Post by mtalantikite »

Sytten wrote: post #14
pcurve wrote: post #9

The chemicals in question are of type PFAS and believe it or not, they're still legal to use today, though they're being phased out and banned in a few years. The problem is 3M scientists have know toxicity to human and have withheld the information to the public and regulators. Since 1970s.

They are used in all kinds of products that I personaly use everyday from pans to dental floss. And the replacements are not better, they just dont have studies yet that prove they are toxic...

There are plenty of pans you can use that don't have these chemicals -- cast iron, carbon steel, stainless steel, clay, etc. I agree about the floss and other plastics though. I just try to use other types of materials whenever possible.

Re: 3M heads to trial in ‘existential’ $143B forever-chemicals litigation

#50

Post by Jeff_Brown »

BSEdlMMldESB wrote: post #28
enraged_camel wrote: post #24

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>> disbanding this corporation doesn't undo decades of pollution either. Yes, but it prevents them from harming the public like this in the future, and also serves as a very strong deterrent for others.

or mabye we should be more honest and consider that maybe this is a way for the USA government to fill its coffers back up? (rapping on another comment saying that there's a chance this is a way for the USA government to sell the 'manufacture capacity' that 3M is to other "greener" owners) now that I type this out, I realize that this is perfectly consistent with the behavior of empires. the realization that the alle…

As long as the laws and their enforcement are just, a theoretical government profit motive doesn't seem like a bad thing.

But it's hard to see how the particular people who brought this case to bear would be motivated by the small slice of the increase in federal funding that would redound to them. And it's not consistent with most of the government's behavior -- it doesn't spend as many resources extracting judgments from big corporations as would be likely if its profit motive loomed large.

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