CPSC dawdles on telling public about dangerous products
As promised, I've filed my column so here's the latest bit of news that's good to know. The U.S. Consumer Product Safety Commission isn't a naughty business, but it is naughty, so says advocacy group Public Citizen.
A Public Citizen study of CPSC settlements published in the Federal Register showed that the agency "typically delays nearly seven months after learning of dangerous, defective products before telling the public" even though a law requires manufacturers to provide the CPSC with "immediate" notification.
The "Hazardous Waits: CPSC Lets Crucial Time Pass Before Warning Public About Dangerous Products" study covers 46 cases since 2002. In those cases, the CPSC fined manufacturers for failing to adhere to the law requiring prompt reporting. The average amount of time those companies took -- between learning of a safety defect in their product and notifying the CPSC -- was 993 days or 2.7 years. The 46 cases were chosen because the CPSC publishes information about only those settlement agreements in which penalties are imposed. Details about other delays and recalls are not publicly available.Public Citizen says, shockingly, the CPSC then took an average of 209 additional days before disclosing the information to the public even though each case concerned a product defect so dangerous that the item was recalled.
Some of those products included:
Coffee makers and vacuum cleaners prone to catching fire, treadmills that spontaneously accelerated to an Olympic miler’s pace, all-terrain vehicles with throttles that became stuck in the "go" position, bicycles with forks that could break under normal use, and infant swings that could cause strangulation and were implicated in the deaths of six infants.
Yikes. Three years?!
Yikes. Three years?!"There’s no excuse for manufacturers waiting nearly three years before telling the CPSC about a defective product that can kill people - or for the CPSC taking another seven months to negotiate a recall and warn the public," said Joan Claybrook, Public Citizen president. "Manufacturers now have the power to hamstring the agency. Given these inordinate delays, the law must be changed to allow the agency to inform consumers and give it enough money, authority and enforcement muscle."
To read more about Public Citizen's findings, click here.
Categories: Consumer protection, Consumer safety, Naughty businesses/NBotW
