Bush to nominate Baroody as CPSC head

The White House has made months of rumors official. On Thursday afternoon, President Bush announced his intention to nominate Michael E. Baroody (pictured, right) to be chairman of the Consumer Product Safety Commission. Baroody currently serves as the executive vice president of the National Association of Manufacturers; he has also been NAM's senior vice president for policy, communications, and public affairs.

When it comes to safety regulation, NAM has traditionally pushed for a hands-off approach, urging the Commission to rely on educational campaigns and voluntary standards set by industry.  So it will be interesting to hear Baroody's thoughts on the CPSC — and equally interesting to hear what the Democrat-controlled Senate thinks about the nomination.

The CPSC has been without a chairman since Hal Stratton left the Commission last July; and with only two commissioners, the agency has been left without a quorum, limiting its ability to issue new rules or take new action on large civil penalties against firms that have failed to report defective or hazardous products. We think it is very important the CPSC regain its full authority.  However, it is even more important that — as an agency charged with overseeing safety of over 15,000 products, and ensuring that they do not pose unreasonable safety risks — the CPSC must be lead by someone who will champion the interests of consumers. Consumers Union will be urging Congress to carefully scrutinize Baroody's views, perspectives, and biases.  If those views reflect the manufacturers' points of view, we have significant concerns with him running a consumer protection and consumer safety agency.  In the coming next weeks we will be more carefully evaluating his background and urge Congress to do the same.

Fisher-Price fined $975,000 over Little People toy farm

The Consumer Product Safety Commission has fined Fisher-Price Inc. $975,000 for failing to report a serious choking and aspiration hazard with a popular toy, the Little People Animal Sounds Farm.

According to the CPSC, Fisher-Price didn’t report a safety hazard to the CPSC until March 2003, six months after the manufacturer first received a report of a nail fastener coming loose from one of the toy barn’s stall doors. That was in September 2002; in the next two months, the company received nine additional reports, including one case in which the child placed the fastener in her mouth, the CPSC said. Then in December, a 14-month old child aspirated a nail fastener into his lung; he had to be taken to the hospital and undergo emergency surgery to have the fastener removed. 

By the time Fisher-Price reported the hazard to the commission, the company “was aware of at least 33 reports in which the nail fastener came loose from the stall doors,” the agency said in a press release announcing the civil penalty. 

Under federal law, companies are required to report to the CPSC within 24 hours any information that reasonably suggests a product contains a defect which could create a substantial risk of injury or presents an unreasonable risk of serious injury or deaths. 

In agreeing to the settlement, Fisher-Price denied the CPSC’s allegations that the company knowingly violated the law. The toy was recalled in 2003, with Fisher-Price and the CPSC recommending that consumers take the toy away from young children immediately and call the company for a free repair kit. Consumers can still call Fisher-Price at 866-259-7873 or order the repair kit online.