You shouldn’t have to wait years to learn that a product might endanger your child’s life
When an unsafe product puts children’s lives at risk, the public ought to know about it, without delay. Americans should be able to trust that the consumer and household products they buy don’t pose a danger in their homes, especially to children. When Mom and Dad buy a dresser for their toddler, they shouldn’t have to worry that it could topple over and severely injure —perhaps even kill — their child.
Crystal Ellis, a mother of two from Washington state, didn’t give it a second thought when she bought an Ikea dresser for her toddler son. But just before he was about to turn 2, the boy was injured, and later died, when his head became wedged between two drawers and the dresser tipped over onto him.
To date, at least nine children have died in accidents involving defective Ikea dressers and chests, as the Sun-Times’ Stephanie Zimmermann reported recently. The company has had to pay millions to settle lawsuits brought by the children’s families, including a recent $46 million settlement to a California family.
Ellis’ son died in 2014. Two years later, following the deaths of more children, Ikea finally recalled millions of the dressers.
The Consumer Product Safety Commission has since conducted safety tests on similar clothing storage units. Dozens failed that testing, according to the Consumer Federation of America. Yet CPSC cannot release the brand names to the public because of a brick wall: an obscure provision in its regulations called “Section 6(b).”
“The best way to describe this is a gag order,” as Nancy Cowles, executive director of Kids in Danger, a national safety organization based in Chicago, told the Sun-Times. “You don’t know what you don’t know.”
Congress can make sure the public find out, in a timely manner, by passing a law proposed last week by U.S. Rep. Bobby Rush, D-Illinois.
The Safety Hazard and Recall Efficiency (SHARE) Information Act would ban companies from going to court to keep the agency from disclosing critical details, such as brand names, when it deems a product unsafe or defective. The bill also would toughen the penalties on companies that fail to comply with various reporting requirements, such as the requirement to report deaths related to their products.
For their part, companies have argued that
Section 6(b) is needed to protect their legitimate, consumer-conscious business interests.
They have a point. One inaccurate press release or unwarranted product recall could doom a fledgling company’s chances in the market, or send an established company’s stock prices tumbling.
But as consumer watchdog groups repeatedly have pointed out, companies should not be able to keep safety information under wraps for months or years as litigation plays out.
Businesses, in fact, have typically lost those legal battles, as the consumer group Public Citizen found in a 2019 report. “Yet while those cases made their way through the court system, important safety information was delayed from being released,” the report states.
In the meantime, lives are endangered. As Elliot F. Kaye, the former head of the CPSC, told Congress last spring, “People die because of Section 6(b).”
The public saw compelling, and heartbreaking, evidence of that with last year’s recall of inclined sleepers blamed for the deaths of 73 babies. It was only by chance that the public first learned about the real dangers of those sleepers, thanks to the magazine Consumer Reports accidentally getting unredacted information about them.
Their hands tied by 6(b), the CPSC could issue only vague warnings, without including brand names or other details that would have helped parents avoid purchasing the most dangerous products.
The SHARE Information Act would require the commission to give manufacturers 15 days notice that safety information is going to be made public, which strikes us as an entirely sensible compromise.
This reform would rightly shift the balance of power toward the public — not a company with deep pockets fighting the commission to protect their interests but not necessarily yours.
THEIR HANDS TIED BY 6(B), THE CPSC COULD ISSUE ONLY VAGUE WARNINGS, WITHOUT INCLUDING BRAND NAMES OR OTHER DETAILS THAT WOULD HAVE HELPED PARENTS AVOID PURCHASING THE MOST DANGEROUS PRODUCTS.
President Barack Obama initiated hundreds of drone strikes against foreign territories and instrumentalities without first seeking a specific authorization from Congress for the use of military force. House Speaker Nancy Pelosi at that time opined that Obama was not mandated to proffer such advance warning to Congress.
As commander in chief, Obama was entitled to the flexibility necessary to effectuate tactical strikes without congressional intervention or operational restriction.
Now President Donald Trump has taken decisive action to neutralize a known terrorist responsible for more than 600 American deaths and an indeterminate number of lifelong catastrophic injuries to true national heroes — American GIs.
But Trump gets blasted by these same Democrats and the mainstream media.
The war powers resolution passed by the Democratic-controlled House this week, though not legally binding on the president, limits his powers as commander in chief to direct tactical military operations.
What a useless waste of time.