The number of recalls of toys and children’s products is up 22%
over the first half of last year, despite industry promises last year to solve
the problems that made 2007 the “year of the recall,” according to a report
released today. An analysis of Consumer Product Safety Commission data,
included in the report entitled “Total Recall”, authored by the nation’s
leading consumer groups, documents the rise in product recalls. The groups urge
Congress to enact a “strong CPSC Reform Act” before the August recess.
In response to the recall of 45 million toys and children’s
products in 2007, the U.S. House and Senate both passed strong versions of the CPSC
Reform Act; granting the beleaguered agency new funding and authority to police
imports, and banning lead in children’s products. Final action on a conference
committee report resolving differences, however, has been stalled by industry lobbyists
pulling out all the stops to gut or delay passage, the groups said.
“Will Congress give ExxonMobil and the toy industry
Christmas in July or will it guarantee America’s littlest consumers a safe
holiday season by finishing CPSC reform now?” said Janet Domenitz, Executive
Director of MASSPIRG.
The groups said that last week’s action on establishing a
public database of potential hazards was a major step forward, but that special
interest lobbyists were standing in the way on the following key items:
Subjecting numerous toy
hazards, including the small powerful magnets that have already killed one
little boy, to the new law’s centerpiece third party testing requirements.
“It would be a tragic irony if a law passed to protect
against toy hazards didn’t require toy hazard testing,” said Nancy Cowles,
director of Kids In Danger.
Banning toxic
chemicals known as phthalates from children’s products. The Senate version of the legislation included
the Feinstein amendment to ban phthalates. It passed on the floor on a voice
vote; the House bill has no similar provision.
The states of California and Washington have already imposed similar bans, the groups
said.
“It comes down to risks versus benefits. The risk is to our children’s health while
the benefits go to ExxonMobil, which profits from phthalates,” said Dr. Diana
Zuckerman, president of the National
Research Center
for Women & Families. She added,
“The phthalate DINP must be included in the ban. It’s the one most widely used in toys.”
Ensuring product
safety by ensuring that product safety whistleblowers have rights. The
House bill is silent. The groups support inclusion of a Senate whistleblower
protection provision, noting that the
CPSC has a chilling “don’t talk, don’t publish” culture that stifles disclosure
of critical safety information that is also at odds with numerous laws that
Congress has enacted to protect whistleblowers in other sectors.
The groups also urged
conferees to reject an eleventh hour proposal that would preempt states from
regulating new third party testing procedures. The preemption provision is found in neither
the House nor Senate-passed bills.
“Unwise industry demands for preemption of a new, unproven
third party testing regime threaten to take state attorneys general, often the
best consumer cops, off the product safety beat,” said David Arkush, director
of Public Citizen’s Congress Watch.
In
the first six months of 2008, according to analysis of available CPSC recall
notices, 108 children’s products were recalled, including 45 for lead
contamination and 10 for hazardous magnets.
Of those 108 products, fifty-three toys have been recalled this year
already, totaling 6.2 million units. Last year by June, there had been only 84
children’s product recalls, which included 31 toyrecalls.
“The 22% increase suggests strongly that what the toy
industry called “last year’s problem” remains very much today’s problem,” said
Ami Gadhia, policy counsel for Consumers Union, “and points to the urgent need
for Congress to finish action on the CPSC Reform Act.”
In June, conferees met and approved 21 generally
non-controversial items. Last week, conferees approved nine more, including the
establishment of the product safety database. In addition to the above
remaining items, the groups also believe that a pending All-Terrain-Vehicle
(ATV) amendment being proposed by the Senate must be improved if it is to be
included in the final law. Other remaining items, such as negotiating the
length in years of the CPSC reauthorization and its maximum budget authorization,
are expected to be resolved favorably for consumers’ safety. The groups’ other
remaining concern is that final action be taken before the August recess, since
the agenda for fall sessions of the Congress remains uncertain.
“We can’t wait for more evidence of a broken product safety
system, more recalls, or more potentially dangerous products ending up in our
children’s hands and mouths. Congress must protect our tiniest and most
vulnerable consumers,” concluded Rachel Weintraub, Director of Product Safety
and Senior Counsel for Consumer Federation of America. “The time to finish is
now, before Congress goes home for August recess.”
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MASSPIRG(www.masspirg.org) – the Massachusetts Public
Interest Research Group, is a
non-profit, non-partisan organization that takes on powerful interests on
behalf of its members. For 22 years, MASSPIRG and other PIRGs around the
country have released the annual Trouble In Toyland report, which has resulted
in over 125 CPSC toy recalls, including
the recalls of over one million toys containing dangerous magnets in 2008
alone.
For more information on the other non-profit, non-partisan
consumer and public health organizations that released this report, please
visit their websites:
Consumer Federation of America (consumerfed.org); Consumers
Union (consumersunion.org);
Kids In Danger (kidsindanger.org); National Research Center
For Women & Families (center4research.org); Public Citizen (citizen.org).
masstotalrecall.pdf