CPSC May Strengthen Crib Standards After Recalls
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On October 21, 2008, the Consumer Product Safety Commission issued two separate recalls on cribs, involving almost 1.6 million cribs manufactured by Delta Enterprise Corp. of New York. The CPSC also said it would review crib standards and may issue advanced notice of proposed rulemaking.
One of the recalls involves cribs made in Taiwan and Indonesia, and the other involves cribs made in China. Both involve cribs with drop sides that can detach, which has caused one death from suffocation.
An early-warning system was implemented by the CPSC in 2007, and they have since conducted five crib recalls involving broken, faulty, or missing hardware. The early-warning system identifies concerns with the durability of cribs, particularly those with drop sides that can detach and cause entrapment and strangulation. Current crib standards have prevented many deaths and injuries, said the CPSC, but they still need to be strengthened.
The commission plans to examine the standards in an advanced notice of proposed rulemaking, which, if approved, will allow for public input about the hardware, assembly, and instructional problems, and also wood quality and strength for all crib designs.
The CPSC advises parents to inspect the hardware and stability of their cribs and ensure proper and secure installation of all parts.
The CPSC needs to strengthen these standards, in this writer’s opinion. A substantial portion of these cribs being recalled involve cribs made overseas, and the CPSC is a vital line of defense between these foreign manufacturers and unsuspecting American consumers. We need the CPSC to put some teeth in its mission, and do more to protect the public, especially given the fact that we are consuming more and more foreign products that cannot be effectively inspected until they arrive on our soil