Product safety panel plans public database

By Lucy Soto

For the AJC

A child is cut playing with a toy. A baby falls from a poorly-designed carrier. An adult has breathing problems after using a new cleaning solution.

Parents, caregivers and even safety and medical workers report stories like these again and again to the Consumer Product Safety Commission, the federal agency in charge of protecting the public from harmful products. But we might never hear about them.

This March, that’s supposed to change.

The CPSC is rolling out a searchable public database, about three years in the making, that will allow consumers to post and view incidents of safety problems, injuries and deaths related to everyday products. It will be posted at SaferProducts.gov. (Federal highway officials have a similar database, called SaferCar.gov, in which consumers can file complaints about automobiles.)

“It’s been long in coming,” said Rachel Weintraub, director of product safety and a lawyer with the Consumer Federation of America. There’s a “real inequality in information, and consumers have been in a veil of ignorance when it comes to product safety information.”

A report by advocacy group Public Citizen found in 2008 it took an average of nearly eight months for the CPSC and manufacturers to warn the public about hazardous products in cases where the commission fined manufacturers.

The CPSC, a relatively small federal agency of about 530 employees, has jurisdiction over more than 15,000 kinds of consumer products used in homes, sports, recreation and schools.

With the new website, the agency has five days to provide a report to the manufacturer, who has the option to respond; it posts the report 10 days after that.

CPSC already gathers safety complaints from consumers. But they were typically kept secret. The agency was required by law to get permission from manufacturers and private labelers before it shared that information with the public.

Getting the details was a process that could take months or years, if ever.

So, usually the only information consumers could find online has been about previous product recalls. By then, injuries, and even deaths, have piled up.

In children’s products alone, the recalls in the past year for cribs, toys and strollers climbed into the many millions. Storkcraft, for example, recalled more than 2 million drop-side cribs after four deaths and reports of entrapments. Maclaren recalled over 1 million strollers after 12 fingertip amputations.

Kids in Danger, a nonprofit children’s product safety group, said 41 percent, or 143, of the products recalled by CPSC in 2009 were for children. Six of the recalls were for 1 million or more units — adding up to more than 21 million recalled children’s products.

KID Director Nancy A. Cowles hopes the database will let consumers, researchers and manufacturers in on trends in injuries, how products are used or misused and warnings about unsafe products much earlier.

“There are a million ways this information will be useful in the safety scheme,” she said. “Just for the individual consumer, for one. Expectant parents do a lot of research, and they can go to one site [to check safety issues] on a new crib or if their sister wants to give them a crib. Or if a parent has an incident, they can look and see, is this a fluke? Was I using the product wrong? Or have there been other incidents.”

An array of consumer groups has been cheering the creation of the database. In addition, to CFA and KID, they include Consumers Union, which publishes Consumer Reports magazine; Public Citizen; Union of Concerned Scientists; and the U.S. Public Interest Research Group.

But it has its critics.

Eric Stone, a former CPSC official who now advises companies on complying with CPSC laws as a partner in the law firm K&L Gates, believes consumers won’t be the ones getting real benefit from the database. In a trade magazine called Product Safety Letter, Stone wrote it is more likely that competitors, plaintiff’s attorneys, consumer reporters and interest groups would use the information.

“They are the ones who might perceive uses for this limited data to harm their competitors, support planned or current cases, create eye-popping stories, or for other not necessarily ‘consumer safety’ uses,” Stone wrote. “And therein lie the concerns of many manufacturers and private labelers. ”

Weintraub, who penned a response called “Don’t Fear the Sunshine,” argued consumers are hungry for more information. Subscription websites like Consumers Union and Consumer Checkbook are thriving, as are websites like Yelp. But there’s no place for consumers to get comprehensive safety information based on actual product reports.

She gave the example of parents whose children died from suffocation on sleep position cushions. “Had they been able to read the incident reports of previous deaths, their children might still be alive today,” she said. “Instead, it took their children’s deaths for the CPSC to release injury and death reports about this deadly product.”

The CPSC called on consumers in September to stop using infant sleep position cushions, saying that, in 13 years, it had received 13 reports of infants one to four months old who died from suffocation.

“A more informed, better educated consumer,” Weintraub said, “is good for everybody.”

SEARCHABLE INFORMATION

Here’s the scoop on the searchable product safety database:

The Consumer Product Safety Commission plans its launch in March on www.saferproducts.gov.

Consumers, public safety personnel, medical workers and other members of the public will be able to provide reports of harm and other safety complaints. Manufacturers and retailers will be able to respond. But officials caution it won’t be a blog that allows the public to comment on entries submitted by others.

Incidents will generally be posted within 15 days, after they have been submitted to manufacturers for possible response.

After it’s up and running, the CPSC plans to add the results of safety research and tests it has conducted.

Each submitter must provide eight pieces of information: product description; identity of manufacturer or private label; how the product caused harm; date of the incident; the submitter’s “category,” such as public servant, firefighter, parent or pediatrician; the submitter’s contact, although identities will be confidential; consent to include the information in the database; and verification, on penalty of perjury, that the information is true and accurate.

If you have a tip about government waste, consumer rip-offs or threats to your health and safety, contact us by e-mail or phone: spotlight@ajc.com; 404-526-5041.

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CHECK OUR SOURCES

Kids in Danger, a nonprofit group that works to promote children’s product safety:

www.kidsindanger.org

KID nursery products recall report for 2009:

www.kidsindanger.org/publications/reports/2009_Recall_Report.pdf

Consumer Federation of America:

www.consumerfed.org

Consumer Product Safety Commission’s video about the public database:

www.cpsc.gov/safer/DBaseQA-vid.html

Recalls and product safety news:

www.cpsc.gov/cpscpub/prerel/prerel.html

Six federal agencies have put together a one-stop database for recalls and safety information:

www.recalls.gov