Consumer Law

Football Helmet Injuries and NOCSAE Knuckleheads

By Joe Consumer

How?s this for circular reasoning?  The industry-funded group that is supposed to establish helmet safety standards won?t develop helmet safety standards because the industry is probably negligent for failing to establish adequate helmet safety standards.  I think that?s a conclusion you can draw from an enormous front page New York Times story today. 

Helmet standards are ?written by the National Operating Committee on Standards for Athletic Equipment, or Nocsae, a volunteer consortium that includes, and is largely financed by, the helmet makers themselves.?

The concussion standard (see our prior coverage), ?has not changed meaningfully since it was written in 1973, despite rising concussion rates in youth football and the growing awareness of how the injury can cause significant short- and long-term problems with memory, depression and other cognitive functions, especially in children.?  The Times writes, 

Moreover, used helmets worn by the vast majority of young players encountered stark lapses in the industry?s few safety procedures. Some of the businesses that recondition helmets ignored testing rules, performed the tests incorrectly or returned helmets that were still in poor condition. More than 100,000 children are wearing helmets too old to provide adequate protection ? and perhaps half a million more are wearing potentially unsafe helmets that require critical examination, according to interviews with experts and industry data.

?

However, ?Manufacturers and schools, equipment managers and the coaches ? the whole football industry ? don?t want to go after or even criticize the security blanket of Nocsae,? said Sander Reynolds, Xenith?s vice president for product development. ?If there?s a lawsuit, they all look to Nocsae to say, ?Hey, see, the product met the set standards.? They?re all ultimately on the same side when it comes to liability. Nocsae exists for two reasons ? to avoid skull fractures, and to avoid liability.?

So while it has a clear role providing legal cover for helmet manufacturers that are producing unsafe helmets, the Times reports that ?Nocsae accepts no role in ensuring that helmets, either new or old, meet even its limited requirement.?  Neither does anyone else, it seems:

Nocsae?s annual budget of about $1.7 million is funded mostly by sporting-goods manufacturers whose products bear the Nocsae seal of approval. The largest share of that comes from football helmet makers and reconditioners. ?That?s pretty scary,? said Dr. David Price, who is heavily involved with youth football as a sports medicine physician for Carolinas Medical Center in Charlotte, N.C. ?You would think there would be some sort of third-party oversight.?

?

?I have been calling for a new standard to be written for football helmets for years, and Nocsae has been sitting on their duffs,? [NOCSAE VP, Dr. Robert Cantu of the Boston University School of Medicine], said. ?Everyone?s afraid of being sued, because if you say that certain helmets are better, you?re saying that millions of them out there now aren?t safe.?

Well, yeh.  And well, tough.  If you?re a parent and your child suffers a serious head injury due to an unsafe helmet, shouldn?t you have recourse in the courts against whoever is at fault?

Meanwhile, some of these companies think the whole safety thing is just hilarious.  Check out this odd video demonstration:

Full post as published by ThePopTort on October 21, 2010 (boomark / email).