Window falls a preventable risk to young children

A sampling of news sources highlights some recent cases in which children were killed or injured falling from windows. In Rockland County, New York, a 15-month-old girl fell from a second floor window but escaped serious harm when her fall was cushioned by shrubbery. In Ontario, Canada, the coroner's office is considering an inquest after 10 children fell from windows or balconies this year. And this week in Seattle, the Harborview Medical Center is initiating a two-year study on how best to prevent window falls.

The Consumer Product Safety Commission estimates that nine children die and 3,700 children are injured each year from window falls. Most of the deaths and injuries occur in children younger than five. Given the ongoing nature of this problem, Consumers Union, the non-profit publisher of Consumer Reports, believes information on window safety bears repeating.   

In the 1970s, New York City launched a landmark program called  “Children Can’t Fly” that required homeowners and landlords to install window guards in homes with small children. The program decreased hospitalizations for  window falls by 96 percent and has been used as a model for other cities. In Boston, there was an 83 percent decrease in child fall hospitalizations between 1993 and 1995 after that  city implemented a similar program.

Window falls are not just a problem for urban dwelling residents of  high-rise buildings. Even falling from a first floor window can harm a very young child. Fortunately, most window falls can be prevented by taking the appropriate safety measures in homes were small children live or visit.

The CPSC recommends the following:

• Install window guards. For windows on the 6th floor and below, install window guards that adults and older children can open easily in case of fire. For windows on the 7th floor and above, permanent window guards can be installed.
• Install guards in the bedrooms of children and parents as well as in any other room where young children spend time.
• Another option is to install window stops that prevent windows from opening more than 4 inches.
• Never depend on screens to keep children from falling out of windows.
  
• Whenever possible, open windows from the top -- not the bottom.
• Children love to climb so keep furniture away from windows to discourage them from climbing near windows.
• Properly supervise children.
• Be especially cautious during the warmer months when windows are more likely to be open.

 

Rosemary Shahan: from a lemon she made ... lemon laws

Consumer activist Rosemary Shahan was at one time so inexperienced that the posters she used to picket an auto dealer were completely illegible. This is the same Shahan whose tireless campaigns have led to lemon laws around the country, airbag requirements for every car sold in the U.S., numerous auto recalls, and a car buyer’s Bill of Rights in California.

Since 1979, Shahan has worked aggressively to expose deceptive and illegal practices, recall unsafe or defective vehicles, and improve auto safety technology. (For example, we can thank Shahan for making car manufacturers install height adjusters for seat belts). Currently, she is working to get California and other states to participate in the National Motor Vehicle Titling Information System. This national  information-sharing database allows law enforcement agents, and buyers and sellers of motor vehicles to track car histories. Doing so could curtail fraud involving vehicles damaged in wrecks or floods as well as identify stolen vehicles.

Shahan well deserves to be on this blog’s list of Safety Crusaders. Like many of our previous crusaders, she didn’t deliberately set out to be a consumer activist. It all happened by chance—and somewhat spontaneously—after a California auto dealer repeatedly failed to fix her car, damaged in a collision, in a timely fashion. "They kept saying it would be done and it wasn't," Shahan recently recalled. “After three
months, they admitted they hadn’t even ordered all the parts yet ... and said if we complained, they would put bad parts in the car. They even showed us samples of bad parts.” Shahan, then an English teacher, started to picket the dealership. “I was a terrible picketer. At first, people couldn’t read my signs.” But over time, her signs improved and more and more people approached Shahan to tell her their own car horror stories.

That was in 1980, when California’s state law said consumers had to give manufacturers a “reasonable” number of repair attempts before a car could be considered a lemon. “But nobody knew what was reasonable and at one hearing, Ford said it would take up to 30 tries” before it deemed a car a lemon, Shahan said.

That acknowledgement led to the drafting of a state lemon law in California that served as a model for similar laws across the country. Now, Shahan says, car manufacturers have four chances in California to repair a new car before it is labeled a lemon and the consumer is entitled to a full refund or replacement vehicle.

Shahan never got her wrecked car back, but she used a financial settlement from the dealer to launch a consumer advocacy group, now called CARS for Consumers for Auto Reliability and Safety, that has been on the leading edge of many auto-safety issues.

For the record, Shahan drives a 1988 Volvo, which she bought new because it had a driver's side airbag -- a new feature at the time. It now has 230,000 miles on it. “It’s a workhorse,” says Shahan. So too is Shahan -- and for that we are safer, and most grateful.

You can find out more about Shahan and her crusade at the CARS Web site.

Do you know any Safety Crusader candidates? Please let us know.

TV stand prone to toppling recalled by CPSC

The U.S. Consumer Product Safety Commission and Sauder Woodworking Co. have issued a voluntary recall of 414,000 TV stands given to collapsing if fasteners were not tightened properly during assembly. As of the recall date, the Archbold, Ohio-based manufacturer had received 43 reports of the stands collapsing.

A 6-year-old girl injured her shoulder when a stand collapsed and the TV on top of it fell on her. In separate incidents, three adults trying to prevent a television from falling off the stand received injuries that required medical treatment, including a broken arm, a torn rotator cuff with a concussion, and an injured finger.

Consumers Union, the nonprofit publisher of Consumer Reports, has long warned about the dangers of television tip-overs and says that the growing size of televisions makes these warnings even more urgent. In most cases, the tip-over occurs because the television set was placed on top of unstable furniture, or the furniture was not intended to hold a TV. Children who climb on furniture to reach the TV can cause it to tip over. If the stand is faulty, the risk is even greater.

The recalled Sauder stand ($90) has a maple finish and wrought-iron legs. It was sold at Wal-Mart stores nationwide and on Walmart.com from January 2005 through May 2007. The model number of the recalled stand is 400205; the UPC number—42666 01958—is printed on the product’s carton and instructions.

If you have one of the recalled stands, stop using it immediately if it moves from side-to-side. This recall does not involve return of the product. Instead, the manufacturer will provide owners with detailed instructions on checking the tightness of the fasteners. For more information on how to properly assemble the stand. go to Sauder's Web site or call 866-218-8312 (7:00 a.m. to 11:00 p.m. ET, Monday through Friday; 9:00 a.m. to 5:00 p.m. ET, Saturday).

 See also:
Babies, children, and TV tip-over accidents
Fatal TV tip-overs: The CPSC reports a troubling increase in tip-over-related deaths
Video: Safety alert -- furniture fails to meet tip-over standards
Stay safe on Super Sunday

 

FDA expands recall of chili and other products linked to botulism cases

Toss the chili sauce and trash the hash and other canned meat products and pet foods from Castleberry's ... that's the latest message from officials at the Food and Drug Administration and the Department of Agriculture, who aren't getting much of a summer break with the steady stream of food-poisoning outbreaks that have occurred recently. This contamination was home grown, after meat and meatless chili products and a variety of other canned-meat products from Castleberry's Food Company, based in Augusta, Georgia, were found to contain botulinum toxin, the agent that causes botulism, a potentially fatal form of food poisoning. Officials are urging consumers to immediately discard any of the recalled products or any foods made with these products, placing them in tightly-closed doubled plastic bags before putting them in the trash.

The contamination was discovered after two people in Texas and two in Indiana were hospitalized after eating Castleberry's Hot Dog Chili Sauce. Telltale symptoms of botulism are serious and can begin 6 to 12 hours after eating contaminated foods. Symptoms can include double or blurred vision, drooping eyelids, slurred speech, difficulty swallowing, and muscle weakness that gradually affects the whole body moving from the shoulders through the legs. Paralysis can affect breathing and quickly become fatal, so seeking prompt medical attention is imperative.

There are also some pet foods included in the recall. Dogs and ferrets are vulnerable to botulinum toxin and should get prompt treatment if they show symptoms such as progressive paralysis, difficulty breathing or chewing, or general weakness, which can occur as soon as two hours or as late as two weeks after eating contaminated food.

Food poisoning from botulism is normally rare, with about 30 cases occurring each year, often attributed to home canning. It occurs when the bacteria known as Clostridium botulinum, widely present as harmless spores in normal garden soil and the general environment, grow and produce a potent nerve toxin when contaminated foods are stored in airtight containers. Heating the foods to the proper temperature before storage is key to killing the spores and any harmful toxins that may be present. However, once food is contaminated it's impossible to be sure that all the toxins are eliminated. That's why it's important to throw away all contaminated products.

The recall affects many different products and Castleberry's voluntarily took the commendable step of expanding the recall to cover all products that may have been made on the defective production line over the past two years, which could include millions of cans. Consumers should heed the warnings and discard any products that may be affected by the recall. You can find a full list of the recalled products on Castleberry's Web site at: www.castleberrys.com or call the company's hotline at 1-800-203-4412.

The FDA's report on the recall can be found on the agency's web site and the federal Centers for Disease Control has a helpful Q&A on botulism on its site.

 

Food safety hearing exposes lack of oversight

Three investigators working for the House Energy and Commerce Subcommittee on Oversight and Investigation revealed some alarming findings about the government’s ability to conduct food safety oversight in a hearing last week. The day-long hearing, entitled "Diminished Capacity: Can the FDA Assure the Safety and Security of Our Nation’s Food Supply?," featured testimony from the subcommittee investigators as well as consumer advocates, scientists from five FDA laboratories slated for closing and Andrew von Eschenbach, the head of the FDA, and three of his department heads.

David Nelson, Senior Investigator for the full Committee kicked off the hearing by describing how the number of FDA investigators has dwindled since 2003 while the number of food imports has nearly doubled. He said the FDA inspects less than one percent of all imported foods and samples only a fraction of those it inspects. On a typical day in the San Francisco office, he said, a reviewer may examine 600 food entries, 300 medical device entries, 25 reagent entries and 25 drug entries on a computer screen. This is one entry every 30 seconds, giving the reviewer little time to take action. “A single entry of Chinese herbs can take more than an hour to review,” he said.

The FDA also “permits importers to take possession of even highly suspect goods and arrange for their testing by private laboratories,” Nelson said. These tests are then used as evidence that food is safe to enter the U.S. However, the laboratories are not certified by the FDA, despite the congressional investigators’ findings that they often use incorrect methods or report incorrect results. FDA staff told investigators that certain independent labs were “scary” and others “shoddy,” arriving at results that are driven by financial rather than scientific concerns.

While the U.S. Department of Agriculture, which inspects meat and poultry, allows these products to come into only 10 ports, the FDA must oversee imports coming into 326 ports, Nelson said. Unfortunately, the FDA has inspectors at only 91 of those ports. Importers know where their chances of avoiding inspections are greatest and work the system accordingly, the investigators said.

Nelson described a disturbing finding related to Country of Origin Labeling: "The true country of origin of imported wheat gluten and of vegetable protein is also a matter of some controversy. Committee staff was told that Europe generally, and the Netherlands specifically, is the principal source of wheat gluten imports. Staff witnessed, however, the unloading of wheat gluten declared as coming from China in 50-pound bags marked with the 'Wind Mill' brand of a Dutch firm, Meelunie. The bags gave no indication that the product was from China, but indicated the supplier was in 'Amsterdam, Holland.'"

Seven of the 13 FDA labs are slated for closure and the investigators visited all but one of them. In the process, investigators testified that they had tried repeatedly but were unable to get the FDA to provide analysis justifying what the investigators called a "radical reorganization" of the FDA.

Representatives of five of the seven labs slated for closure came to the hearing to describe their work, which included testing for poisons in pet food, evaluating bioterrorism threats, checking for antibiotic contamination, and inspecting medical devices. They testified that they were being kept in the dark about the details of and the reasons for the proposed closings.

Testifying last, FDA Administrator von Eschenbach argued that the FDA was working hard to improve its inspection system. The lab closings, he said, were part of an effort to consolidate resources and bring the FDA "into the 21st Century." Von Eschenbach resisted the call from some members for mandatory standards for food safety practices, saying he preferred "guidances."

Several members of Congress have introduced legislation to overhaul the FDA's food inspection system, among them Senator Richard Durbin (D-Il), whose bill calls for fees on importers to be used for more and better inspections.

Consumers Union is analyzing such proposals and will be weighing in on them in the near future.

Activists highlight roof-crush concerns

Every year, 10,000 lives are lost in automobile rollovers; 24,000 passengers are seriously injured. It’s a problem that has long concerned Consumers Union, publisher of Consumer Reports, having frequently called on the government to issue stronger safety standards to protect occupants in vehicle rollovers.

We are far from alone. This week, many similar voices convened at a conference in Washington, D.C. in hopes of bringing more pressure on the National Highway Traffic and Safety Administration to adopt stronger roof-crush safety standards.  The conference, entitled “Emergency World Summit on Roof Crush,” was put together by Paula Lawlor, a California mother of seven who has helped numerous attorneys around the country represent roof crush victims in their lawsuits against car manufacturers. Lawlor has many supporters, who call her the Erin Brockovich of the auto industry; she also has many detractors who say she is a tool of the trial attorneys.

    We’re not here to take sides on Lawlor. But we are pleased to see the attention being given to roof-crush safety, particularly as NHTSA prepares to issue its latest version of a new roof-crush safety proposal.  In November 2005, NHTSA issued a proposal to tighten the long-held standard that has required cars up to 6,000 pounds to meet a static weight test. In that test, a metal plate is pressed on a vehicle’s roof to show it can support at least 1.5 times the vehicle’s weight. Under the 2005 proposal, NHTSA said it would increase the weight ratio to 2.5 times a vehicle’s weight — and make that standard apply to vehicles weighing up to 10,000 pounds, thus making SUVs and pickups comply with roof-crush rules.

Now, NHTSA has indicated that in a few weeks it expects to issue a supplement to its 2005 proposal — a sign that significant changes probably have been made. We hope these changes will include a requirement for a dynamic roof-crush test — one that involves a moving vehicle — to simulate the point of impact for each specific vehicle. Doing so would measure the depth of the caved-in roof and determine how well seat belts and side curtain airbags protect occupants in rollovers. This test would assess the whole vehicle in a real world dynamic situation where many factors come into play and not just rely on a static test that may not fully represent the factors that lead to fatalities in vehicle rollovers. For more details, please see the testimony we submitted to NHTSA two years ago.

Related entries:

• It's official: DOT rule will require stability control by 2012
• Raising the roof standard for rollover safety

Hasbro recalls Easy-Bake Ovens following partial finger amputation

Just five months after issuing a recall of its pink and purple plastic oven, toymaker Hasbro and the Consumer Product Safety Commission today asked owners of the ovens to stop using them immediately and return them to the company. The recall affects one million ovens purchased since May 2006.

 In February, Hasbro offered oven owners a retrofit kit intended to solve the problem of little chefs inserting their fingers into the oven cavity. Since then, however, Easy-Bake has received 249 reports of children getting their hands or fingers caught in the opening, including 77 reports of burns, 16 of which were reported as second and third-degree burns. Easy-Bake also received one report of a serious burn that required a partial finger amputation of a 5-year-old girl.

 The oven, which can reach temperatures of 350 and 400 degrees, is not recommended for children under 8 and even children that age should use it only with adult supervision. Still, some of the burns were reported in younger children.

 Julie Vallese, spokesperson for the CPSC, said when Hasbro learned of the partial amputation it decided to do more than provide the repair kit. "We’re big fans of doing more," she added.

 Hasbro is asking that owners of the Easy-Bakes return them to the company in exchange for a voucher for another of its products. For more information, you can call the company at (800) 601-8418 or visit their Web site at www.easybake.com.

 Consumers who ask for instructions will be sent a box and a prepaid label to return the oven. Those who requested the repair kit earlier will automatically be sent a box with prepaid shipping.

 

To learn more:

• Read the announcement from the CPSC
• Get more information from Hasbro

Our eight-point plan to police hazardous imports

Today, Don Mays, the Senior Director of Product Safety Planning for Consumers Union, gave testimony on the safety of consumer products and food imported from China before the U.S. Senate committee on commerce, science and transportation. His testimony unveiled an eight-step plan of action to protect consumers from hazardous imports. "We believe the responsibility for safety has to be firmly attached to each link in the supply chain," Mays said.

At almost the same time that Mays was testifying, the White House announced the creation of an Import Safety Working Group, to be headed by Health and Human Services Secretary Michael Leavitt; other members of the group will include the secretaries of state, agriculture, commerce, transportation, treasury and homeland security, as well as the heads of the Food and Drug Administration and Consumer Product Safety Commission. While raising the oversight process to a cabinet-level role may be a good step, we still believe strengthening existing agencies, including the FDA and CPSC, is vital.   

Consumers Union urges more coordination among government agencies as well as better tools and more resources to keep up with the growing number of imports. To accomplish that, CU recommended these eight points of action:

1. Provide increased resources to government safety agencies to prevent unsafe products from crossing our borders.
2. Prompt the need for pre-shipment inspection and testing by holding importers, distributors, and retailers accountable for bringing unsafe products to the market. 
3. Develop U.S. government-administered third-party safety certification programs.
4. Develop a product traceability program for country-of-origin labeling for food, drugs, and cosmetics, as well as other consumer products.
5. Require that importers post a safety bond to ensure they have the resources to recall products if required.
6. Give all agencies the power to levy meaningful civil penalties for companies who fail to comply with regulations; and criminal penalties for those who knowingly or repeatedly jeopardize public safety.
7. Authorize mandatory recall authority for all government agencies.
8. Require all government agencies to publicly disclose information pertaining to safety investigation and reports of adverse events.

Today’s committee meeting was characterized as a "listening session" and we hope the members indeed pay heed.

See also:

• Executive Order: Establishing An Interagency Working Group on Import Safety
• U.S. Senate hearing - Safety of Chinese Imports: Oversight and Analysis of the Federal Response
• Can you trust Chinese-made products?
• Tainted animal feed: Why the government's approach isn't working
• Toothpaste trouble: what you need to know now
• Thomas & Friends recall: 1.5 million trains and accessories for lead
• CR Survey: Consumers want country-of-origin labeling
• FDA warning on Chinese fish highlights problems with inspections

More children's jewelry recalled for lead; China questioned risks

Today's recall of Sleeping Beauty crown and Cinderella star earring sets from Wal-Mart in Florida has a familiar ring to it. Though the number of affected units is remarkably small (just 220), the rest of the recall notice is similar to many we've seen recently. The Disney-branded children's earrings, manufactured in China for Uncas Manufacturing Co. of Providence, RI, are being recalled for high levels of lead, as were 20,000 pieces of children's jewelry recalled less than two weeks ago, along with over 6 million pieces of jewelry recalled so far this year.

With the ongoing surge in such recalls, you'd think there would be unanimous support for the Consumer Product Safety Commission’s proposal to ban any children’s metal jewelry containing more than 0.06 percent of total lead. Individual citizens, retailers, consumers and environmental groups (including Consumers Union, publisher of Consumer Reports) all praised the proposed ban as a major step forward and way overdue. Several even argued that the 0.06 percent cap was too lenient.  

The exception: China. In comments filed with the CPSC, the government of China said the proposed rule was “unreasonable,” based on insufficient science. China said that jewelry could be made of more than 0.06 percent lead by weight because the coating would keep the lead from seeping out. Thus, the jewelry would “do little harm for children.” 

China said that while it agreed with the goal of protecting children’s health and safety, it believed a safety warning would be more appropriate.

The CPSC proposed the mandatory ban late last year, after the agency had issued at least 14 separate recalls, involving more than 160 million pieces of metal jewelry, over a two-year period. Already this year, the agency has issued 19 recalls for lead in children’s jewelry; all but two involved jewelry made in China.

To us, the increased number of recalls in 2007 alone seems another good reason for pressing forward with the mandatory ban. Though it may not entirely stop Chinese manufacturers from producing jewelry containing lead, it could put pressure on importers like the one recently quoted by The Wall Street Journal as complaining that testing products from China for lead is "a colossal pain." Chances are that penalties for violating a ban could be more painful than the costs of compliance.

See also:

• CPSC calls for tighter limits for lead
• Comments by Consumers Union on proposed CPSC rule (PDF)
• All comments on proposed CPSC rule (PDF)
• WSJ - Lead toxins take a global round trip (sub. req.)

A prayer for safe driving

On TV, the cars zoom, zip and zap around all sorts of obstacles. Only in the small print do you see the warning: professional driver on closed course.

Meanwhile, Acura ads in magazines such as The New Yorker call driving, “a civilized way to handle your aggression.”

That ad (which also states that "the civilized way to handle aggression is to embrace it") was the last straw for one of our readers in Rhode Island who wrote to us to complain about car ads that seem to promote dangerous and aggressive driving. “Where is the outcry to put pressure on these companies to stop promoting the kind of driving that is life threatening?” the reader asked.

“It is unusual these days to drive more than 15 miles on a highway without spotting someone who is clearly driving in a way that endangers life — and this is what is glorified in most auto advertising today,” the reader said. “Perhaps we need the government to step in the way it did with the advertising of alcohol and cigarettes. Surely these aggressive drivers are equally as dangerous.”

At the very least, the reader adds, pressure should be put on auto companies to stop featuring dangerous practices.

We agree — and humbly note that we’re not alone in our growing concerns about aggressive driving. Last month, the Vatican issued "ten commandments for motorists" (which actually contains over 80 points). As the Vatican noted: Cars tend to bring out the “primitive” side of human beings, thereby producing "rather unpleasant results."

“We need to take these dynamics into account and react by appealing to the noble tendencies of the human spirit, to a sense of responsibility and self-control, in order to prevent manifestations of the psychological regression that is often connected to driving a means of transport," the document continued. “Driving means coexisting. Driving means controlling oneself."

We have just one word to add: Amen.

See also:

Car safety resources on Consumerreports.org