Second jury affirms safety of 3M’s Bair Hugger™ technology

On Oct. 13, 2022, an Independence, Missouri, state court jury returned a verdict in favor of 3M in the second Bair Hugger trial. 3M has now successfully defended the 3M Bair Hugger™ warming system in the two cases that have gone before a jury. 

The jury, which heard evidence for two weeks, deliberated slightly more than two hours before deciding in favor of 3M.

The verdict affirms what the U.S. Food and Drug Administration and leading medical research organizations have been saying since the start of this litigation: forced-air warming does not increase the risk of surgical site infections. The Bair Hugger technology has benefitted more than 400 million patients and has been safely used globally during surgical procedures to improve post-surgical health outcomes.  

3M is encouraged that jurors continue to see past the faulty research and focus on the facts, which are:

• The U.S. Food and Drug Administration continues to recommend the use of patient-warming devices, including forced-air warming devices, for surgical procedures when clinically warranted.
• There is no reliable evidence that Bair Hugger causes or increases the risk of surgical site infections.

• Not one scientific study – not even the studies the plaintiffs’ lawyers rely upon to support these lawsuits – provides scientific evidence that the Bair Hugger system causes or contributes to surgical-site infections. In fact, the authors of those studies all explicitly acknowledge that their studies do not establish that the Bair Hugger system causes surgical site infections.
• Several studies recommend warming a patient before, during and after surgery, which has been shown to provide valuable benefits including reducing the risk of infections, reduced mortality, fewer post-operative heart attacks, reduced blood loss and faster recovery times.

This latest verdict follows a 2018 federal trial in Minnesota, at which the jury also returned a verdict completely in favor of 3M. The next trial is scheduled to begin in early December in Texas.

We are confident in our product and our case, and we look forward to continuing our successful defense in upcoming trials so that patients continue to receive the care they need.