This law still doesn’t take into account disposal of the batteries or the activation period. It takes 3-5 mins to activate when they’re out of the package. Parents should be educated on proper supervision if they wanted to prevent deaths. It could still happen; and probably will be more accessible since we are all having to completely annihilate the packaging to get them open. The packaging is one small, pointless barrier with zero disregard to all of the other access points a child could have. Heck, they could open the battery door and ingest it if they wanted to.
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It is typical government overreach. These batteries are actually exempt due to not having mercury in them; however the packaging isn’t, which is pointless. I think this law needs some kind of amendment. Because this is impacting over 27K people in spite of 3,000 deaths with none being from a hearing aid battery. This law was passed by parents who felt guilty they didn’t properly supervise their kid, and wanted to “protect” kids. While it has the right idea, it isn’t a fail safe. Kids will still have access to batteries through the doors, when parents take them out, and when they fall out of the packaging the parents are cutting open. This law left so many flaws, it still doesn’t consider the real risk; it’s a coin battery and negligent parents who are the issue. It’s a matter of educating kids on proper disposal, not eating them, and how to care for their hearing aids. Even if it’s out of the packaging, a child could throw it on the ground. Do we allow them to just pick it up and put it in their mouths? Of course not.
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Same to reed! This law is dumb! It may prevent the initial exposure but kids will still have access through the battery doors. It isn’t the packaging that needs to be the barrier; it’s the responsible parents who need to prevent their kids from ingesting hazardous materials lol
Get as many as you can and save the packaging
It’s a federal law; it needs to be overturned first or amended. And it should be!
When I had replaceable batteries when one failed I changed both. If I had an important event I changed both
I changed every 4 days on average.
Now my iPhone quits by 5:00. I have to charge it.
My hearing aids last all day. Hearing aids were replaced at 3 year mark
However hospital visits they die. A year after my heart procedure I’m stone cold deaf without them. I lost 10-20 dB some how.
Mogan, small children don’t understand, especially the ones just starting to crawl. So teaching them is not going to work.
The disposable battery hearing aid is going away. So in a few years, it won’t make a difference for hearing aids.
I suppose that the battery manufacturers will improve the packaging as time passes
but
on the other hand…
as time passes so does the push forcing up to rechargeables…so with the market demand shrinking, will the push for better packaging remain strong enough and for long enough for them to do something about it?
So to restate one of the OP’s questions…
Has anyone found a brand now that has packaging that’s a little more convenient?
That’s my whole point here. The packaging is the wrong barrier. A child could open the battery door on the hearing aif and ingest it that way. The real safety risk isn’t when it’s inside a package purchased from the store. The zinc air batteries are also exempt from this law-as it’s a medical supply, that doesn’t contain mercury, unlike the coin batteries inside other products. There also haven’t been any fatalities from zinc air batteries as well. Only the coin batteries.
The child who inspired this law opened a coin battery that contained mercury in it from a remote control, which wasn’t childproof. It wasn’t inside a childproof package to begin with, it was inside a child accessible product.
Audiologists are able to make the hearing aid equipped with a battery door lock, but this law doesn’t enact that-just the package it comes in when purchased. This law is flawed in so many ways, but doesn’t make this an option for the majority of the people who use them. Children are taught how to change the batteries by licensed audiologists-they have to, it’s their medical supply. I changed mine at age 6-I knew how to change it, and throw the battery away. Kids can also get into the trash or find them on the ground and eat it. Again, packaging isn’t the proper barrier. Proper supervision should be.
Infants and toddlers have to rely on their parents to change them, when their parents see the flashing light indicator they’re going dead. Again-they should also have the childproof casing on the hearing aid themselves. The package it comes in is a bit redundant because the child will still be wearing their hearing aid all day long.
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Duracell still has accessible packaging. Buy them while you still can
OK. THAT says it all. We need to pick up a pitchfork and march to the castle. I’m tired of having to pay the price for other people’s mistakes.
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Augh. Tell NO ONE. I did that after the very first post on this thread. Surfed right up to Amazon and bought a year’s supply.
It was my little secret … Now I’m hoping to save the last of my plastic Duracell battery packages to just drop NEW batteries into. A total cludge. All cuz some unsupervised kit ate a coin battery.
I’m going to send a rubber crutch to someone in gov’t. I just don’t know who?
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If you think hearing aid battery packaging is bad, try getting into the fortress of Ryobi power tool battery packaging. It’s designed to prevent theft, like so many other products going back at least 30 years when I read that tamper resistant packaging was causing many emergency room visits. Considering that the problem has been with us that long without mitigation, it’s unlikely to go away soon. Also, those batteries are now locked up at Home Depot. Not only does one need to find an employee to unlock the cage, the employee is required to walk the buyer to the checkout and remove the anti-theft clamp that’s attached. It’s just another example of everyone needing to pitch in to keep prices down, same as getting your cart checked at Costco. Anyway, I find that aviation snips work well on that tough plastic.
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AUGH! Similar to cold meds containing pseudoephedrine that folks were commandeering to make meth. Too many regulations thanks to knuckleheads out there.
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I received an email from someone who wished not to be identified. He asked me to share the following letter …
Reese’s law: adverse unintended consequences; seeking remediation; battery type 312 zinc air. (178.1 KB)
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Actually that Ryobi one got me- The twin 5AH Pack offer they did in the Autumn for £80 odd. Real fight and cut my hand on it too. Getting to a point where you need a hot-knife just to look at opening them.
I had to replace my car key battery recently. I bought the new battery at the car parts store. When I tried to open the pack, I got to the second layer and was stuck. The clerk had a pocket knife and got the battery out of the pack. There was no way to free that battery without a tool - knife or scissor. I can’t imagine trying that on small HA batteries. I guess I am glad I have rechargeables.
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You are making a mountain out a mole hill.
Amazon sells cheap hearing aid battery containers. The one I bought comes with five, two battery containers.
Just put one in your car, office desk, purse, or on your key chain.
Cheap, pointed school scissors will work, and you can buy one at just about every grocery store, Walmart, or Target. I haven’t tested the rounded pointed school scissors yet, but I wouldn’t be surprised if they work too.
As far as I can tell, most hearing aid manufactures are phasing out the replaceable battery and just going with the rechargeable battery.
Bravo to whoever wrote this. I thought of bringing it up with my congressman’s office as a constituent service matter (he isn’t one of the sponsors). My wife suggested instead that I contact AARP’s government policy office. I sent an email a few weeks ago and just called to follow up.
I could take a bus or walk to the CPSC’s office and ask to speak to someone, for whatever that would be worth. But I don’t think it’s a good idea these days.
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It won’t do you any good. The packaging was tested to federal testing standards, which includes the elderly person testing section, and approved.
Just use a pair of scissors and cut to the center of the package on both sides of the battery. This form a pie shape section from which the battery is easily removed.