House subcommittee grills safety advocates

At yesterday's hearing to begin the dismantling of the 2008 safety law which includes key provisions on juvenile product safety named for Danny Keysar, the House Subcommittee on Commerce, Manufacturing and Trade seemed unwilling to consider that their "wrecking ball" approach (as noted by Representative Waxman (CA-30)) might be unwise. Most of the questioning was reserved for the few safety advocates and its intent seemed more to score points than learn helpful information to construct a narrow approach to give flexibility rather than gut safety provisions. It appears that if we hope to keep safety laws intact, with minor adjustments to address concerns raised by handmade and very small toymakers, this might not be the committee to do that. However, Chairman Bono Mack did indicate a willingness to work with Congressman Jan Schakowsky (IL-9) on cribs and other juvenile product safety issues. We'll continue to hope!

This morning, a House Committee looks at gutting CPSIA

This morning in Washington, DC, the House Subcommittee on Commerce, Manufacturing and Trade is holding a hearing on proposed changes to the landmark Consumer Product Safety Improvement Act of 2008. Hearing from three panels, mostly of industry representatives, the subcommittee will look at far reaching changes including changing the requirement that all children's products should be lead-free, eliminating independent testing for most children's products and allowing cribs that could be unsafe to remain in child care facilities.

We'll have an update after the hearing, but were reassured that at least the majority of the commissioners at CPSC still support strong safety measures. Read their analysis of the legislation here and Rachel Weintraub's testimony here. Rachel is with the Consumer Federation of America and a past KID's Best Friend honoree -- you can see why!

Proposal before House Committee will gut the Danny Keysar Act and leave children vulnerable

In 2008, parents of children injured or killed by unsafe juvenile products rejoiced when the Danny Keysar Child Product Safety Notification Act was included in the Consumer Product Safety Improvement Act and signed into law. This portion of the CPSIA assured parents that:

• For the first time, cribs, strollers, high chairs and other juvenile products had to be independently tested for safety before we brought them into our homes to use with our children.
• Strong new standards would be adopted for juvenile products that would assure that the required testing would find potential flaws and make sure the products were safe for use.
• Child care facilities and other public accommodations could only offer children safe cribs that met federal standards.
• Parents would be given the opportunity to register their products with the manufacturer either through a postage paid card or online – making sure they would learn of recalls.

Well, fill out those product registration cards – you’re going to need them! The new House Subcommittee on Commerce, Trade and Manufacturing wants to strip most of those protections – just like they stripped the words ‘Consumer Protection’ from their subcommittee name – it’s not like they didn’t warn us!

In addition to many other onerous changes that reduce the safety of all products you and your children use, here are the specific changes that affect infant and toddler durable products:

• Strips the requirement for independent testing from all infant and toddler products, except for testing cribs to the old standards that eliminated gaps between slats, but little else. But that stroller, high chair or carrier? Your child will again be the test dummy for safety. Companies may say they employ their own testing, but we saw where that got us with the 10 million cribs recalled in the last four years and dozens of deaths each year in nursery products.
• First, the proposed change says that child care providers have to replace their old cribs that don’t meet the standard – but just this once. In the future, if the standard changes, the facilities can keep using their cribs, only moving up to cribs that meet the new standard when they replace them. We understand this rule – after all, some centers will only be getting their new cribs in late 2012 when there might already be a few changes to the standard – making it a ridiculous exercise in trying to keep up. BUT, the next proposed change, combined with this commonsense change, will basically mean that your child care can keep on using any old crib they want – as long as it doesn’t have a drop-side. Read on…
• The next proposed change says that if a child care facility is using fixed sided cribs (no drop-sides), they don’t have to comply with the new law that requires all cribs in child care to meet the new standard by 2013. So if a center is using an old crib, that we know is unsafe – it has corner posts that have hung children, it has cut-outs that have caused strangulation, or it is simply too old and rickety – they get to keep using that crib! And since they don’t have to comply with the next revision of the standard, they can keep using it forever! They do provide that the facility has to be subject to regulations that require them to stay in the room with the infant, not leave an awake baby in a crib and move all babies out of cribs at 12 months. But we all know that supervision is a poor substitute for safe products. When a baby suffocates or strangles, it is usually with little or no noise. Babies have died when parents have been in the same room.

So, what should be done, what are we asking for?

All products in section 104 of the CPSIA (infant and toddler durable products – cribs, strollers, high chairs, etc) should be subject to independent, third-party testing with no exceptions. These are products parents and caregivers buy to keep their children safe. They involve many parts and hardware and can be very dangerous if defective. Let’s not go back to the days of baby test dummies – let’s make sure the products are safe before we use them for our children.

While it may not be reasonable to ask child care providers to replace all cribs every time there is a minor change to the crib standards, there should be a means by which CPSC can require that if necessary. If another flaw in cribs erupts as the drop-side issue did over the past few years, CPSC should have the ability to require safe cribs in child care settings.

The new mandatory crib standard does so much more than ban drop-sides. In fact, it is unlikely that the drop-side cribs on the market over the past decade that led to millions of products being recalled and dozens of deaths could meet this standard – thereby eliminating the need to even officially ban them. The new standards will make sure crib hardware is sturdy, mattress supports and slats can stand up to real world use and that cribs, used to protect an unattended child, can keep a child safe. Allowing all matter of cribs, safe and unsafe, to remain in child care – just because they don’t have a drop-side is a clear attempt to gut the safety improvements of the past few years. Child care is varied and diverse. It is unreasonable to have an exemption for fixed sided cribs without knowing the condition of the crib, when it was made and what standards it does meet. If we are allowing some child care providers to keep older, less safe cribs, they should at least meet the most recent voluntary standard, ASTM 1169-09 or ASTM 406-09 for non-full size cribs.

Tell Congress – “Don’t Retreat on Safety: Keep our nurseries safe”

Call or email your own representative as well as Chairman Bono Mack of the subcommittee and other members. Let them know we can't go backwards on the safety of our youngest consumers. Tell them about your child and why it is important to you that nursery products meet strong standards and be independently tested.

Don't let them hijack safety -- attempts to gut CPSC funding for critical safety measures

Amendments to vital funding measures are currently being considered in the US House of Representatives that would gut key safety provisions of the Consumer Product Safety Improvement Act. Under threat is the funding for the public database that is set to help consumers learn of and report unsafe products and the third-party testing provisions that are helping to ensure the safety of toys and other children's products.

Without third-party testing to ferret out design flaws and other safety issues, the tough new mandatory standards won't mean much. After all, a ban was in place before the avalanche of toys recalled for lead paint in 2007 -- but with no independent testing, the tainted products were sold to our children anyway.

Without this public database, all of our efforts to make information about unsafe products available to the public will be undermined. The status quo, where public safety information is sealed away in CPSC files, serves no one -- except those making dangerous products. The CPSC database contains an array of protections to ensure that inaccurate information does not get published. Anonymous complaints will not be permitted, and only safety-related information will be permitted. Complaints will not even be considered for publication if 8 specific minimum fields are not filled out. Businesses also get to see every report of harm before it is placed in the database, and have the opportunity to correct inaccurate information and to provide their own comments. These protections are in place to provide transparency for consumers, while also providing protections for manufacturers.

Read this letter from Lisa Olney, whose daughter Ellie was killed in an unsafe portable crib for a personal testament to the importance of this database.

And don't be fooled -- the small amount this will save won't balance the budget -- these cuts are specifically targeted to stop safety measures already approved by Congress.

Contact your representatives immediately to tell them to oppose these attempts to hijack safety and to put the safety of our children first. The amendments to the Continuing Resolution (CR) are filed by Rep. Mike Pompeo (R-KS) and are #545 (defunds the Database), #546 (defunds work to set rules for third party testing) and #547 (defunds CPSC's ability to accredit labs for third party testing for phthalates and toy testing) Click here to find and contact your representative!

UPDATE: Amendment 545 is up for discussion today! Call or email your Congressional Representative. Click here to find and contact your representative!

A look back before tomorrow's historic CPSC crib vote

As we posted last week, the CPSC will vote tomorrow on new mandatory standards for full-size and non-full-size cribs. The standards, if adopted, will be the strongest crib standards in the world. This in the country that has had to recall 10 million plus cribs in the last three years because of deaths and injuries from entrapment hazards when the cribs basically fall apart.

But the push for strong mandatory standards didn't start in 2007 when a Chicago Tribune story and a flood of recalled toys from China focused the nation's attention on children's product safety.

There was Danny Lineweaver in California. His parents, Rose and John, founded the Danny Foundation in 1984 after Danny strangled when his clothing was caught on a crib corner post. For years, the Danny Foundation worked to improve the voluntary standard by incorporating the ban against corner posts and crib cut-outs that might catch on clothes or strings. They also supported the Infant Crib Safety Act, requiring that cribs for sale or in use in public accommodations such as child care met current crib standards.

Iin 1997, Tyler died in a drop-side crib. His mother Michelle Witte has fought valiantly for a ban on this particularly hazardous crib design.

Then in 1998, another Danny, Danny Keysar was killed when the portable crib he napped in at child care collapsed, catching his neck in the v-shape of the side rails and strangling him. His parents founded Kids In Danger -- originally to spread the word to parents about recalled products and child safety. But they soon learned that the real problem was bigger -- there was no requirement that children's products like cribs, strollers and high chairs be tested for safety before they were sold. The crib that killed Danny was never tested for the safety of that folding design -- even though it was the first of its kind. Within months on the market, it had killed a child -- the first of six children to die in that particular brand, at least 19 have died in cribs of that same design.

So in 2001, KID board members sat down with Congresswoman Jan Schakowsky who had volunteered to help with the problem of unsafe children's products. She asked us, "what would be your ideal fix? What would solve the problem?" Without hesitation, we responded -- strong mandatory standards and independent testing. She drafted the Infant and Toddler Durable Product Safety Act and introduced it that year. Each year co-sponsors signed on, but no vote was taken.

Fast forward to 2007 -- the articles, the recalls and Congressional attention. Now, Congress was ready to act and in 2008, the Infant and Toddler Durable Product Safety Act, along with the Infant Crib Safety Act, were incorporated into the Consumer Product Safety Improvement Act (CPSIA) under the Danny Keysar Child Product Notification Safety Act. This also included the requirement for product registration cards for these same durable products so parents would learn more quickly of recalls.

Now three years later, the new crib standard, and accreditation procedures for the independent labs that will test these cribs is on the verge of adoption.

KID does our work to honor the memories of Danny Keysar, Tyler Witte and Danny Lineweaver, along with the many other children who have died in unsafe products. Visit the Family Voices website to read just a few of the stories.

We eagerly anticipate tomorrow's vote and hope CPSC does the right thing. Let's give our children a safe future!

A week of progress on crib safety

I've been in Washington, DC this week to work on crib safety.

Up first, two days of an ASTM (voluntary standard setting body) meeting at the Consumer Product Safety Commission (CPSC) on beefing up the voluntary standard that has governed crib safety for the past several decades. Under the requirements in the landmark Consumer Product Safety Improvement Act of 2008 (CPSIA), CPSC now must develop mandatory standards to cover crib and other durable infant and toddler products. Suddenly, testing methods and performance requirements that were shunned by industry for years are now on the table for a strong standard. The participating groups -- testing labs, consumers, manufacturers and CPSC worked hard to address all the hazard patterns that CPSC has seen in incident reports -- dropside failures, hardware failure, mattress support collapses, breaking slats and more.

By sometime this summer, CPSC should be posting an NPR (notice of rulemaking) with the new regulations on cribs to be in the place by the end of the year.

Then today, KID, along with Susan & Robert Cirigliano, the Juvenile Products Manufacturers Association (JPMA) and CPSC Chairman Inez Tenenbaum testified before the House Subcommittee on Oversight and Investigation. The Committee had called hearing on crib safety and the need for greater oversight after becoming alarmed by the million of cribs recalled recently.

Susan and Robert (pictured at right with CPSC Chairman Inez Tenenbaum) are the parents of Bobby, who died in a dropside crib when he was six months old in 2004. Susan gave moving testimony of what an unsafe product took from their family and the steps they think are needed to protect other children from the same fate. She called for a ban on drop-side crib designs as well as better reporting of incidents and data tracking at CPSC.

JPMA executive director Mike Dwyer also testified about their certification program and their work with ASTM in developing the voluntary standard. He did not attempt to answer the question as to why millions of their certified cribs, bassinets and play yards have been recalled in the last two years and was cut short by the Committee members when he tried to shift the blame to the parents in the death involved in the recent Dorel Asia crib recall. (Dorel Asia's cribs are not part of the JPMA certification program.) That being said, JPMA members worked hard the last two days at CPSC to develop a much stronger standard -- now that it is required.

KID's testimony centered not only on the frustrating history of trying to strengthen the voluntary crib standard, but with consumer expectations and use of cribs and other things CPSC could do to improve crib safety. These include continuing their work on a public database of consumer incident information and increasing recall effectiveness.

CPSC Chairman Tenenbaum spoke of her commitment to improving crib safety and looking at ways CPSC can react more quickly to reports of unsafe products. She gave her personal commitment that there would be a strong mandatory standard by year's end. Given her staff's hard work toward that objective we have confidence CPSC will meet that goal. KID will be an active participant, along with other consumer organizations such as Consumer Federation of America and Keeping Babies Safe, to make sure the new rules are strong enough to keep children safe in cribs.

Nancy Cowles
Executive Director, Kids In Danger