USA TODAY International Edition
Why safety recalls leave children at risk
New report criticizes lack of publicity
Raedyn Grasseth was shocked when she received a call during her overnight shift as an emergency medical technician saying her 10- month- old daughter, Riley, was not breathing.
The infant, who was sleeping in her portable crib, was strangled when it collapsed on her. Though Grasseth dispatched an ambulance to her own home immediately, it was too late.
Soon after Riley’s death, Grasseth learned the company that made the crib had recalled it five years earlier. She had no idea.
Now, Grasseth advocates in Riley’s honor through Kids In Danger, an organization devoted to children’s safety and recall awareness.
Despite Grasseth’s efforts and those of federal regulators, consumer groups and companies, child product safety recalls have a dismal response rate of just 10%, according to a new KID report.
“The return rate of recalls is really abysmal,” says Nancy Cowles, KID’s executive director. “The government makes announcements, but people don’t hear about them or don’t respond.”
Children’s product companies and regulators wait too long to re- call products and the practice has contributed to infant and children’s deaths, the report says. It typically takes 13 reports of design flaws and two injuries to recall products, KID says.
A recall can mean a refund, a repair or a replacement, says Scott Wolfson, communications director at the Consumer Product Safety Commission. Companies can choose among the three.
Product recalls in the report include unstable dressers, the Nap Nanny infant recliner and baby monitor power cords.
Julie Vallese, a spokeswoman for the Juvenile Product Manufacturers Association, says toys and children’s products have always had low recall response rates and the issue is one several administrations have grappled with. And the study focuses on the wrong thing, she adds.
“Return rates for products are a poor indicator of recall effectiveness, since a variety of factors affect how consumers decide to respond,” says Vallese, a former spokeswoman for the CPSC.
Cowles thinks lack of publicity is the larger problem. Companies and the CPSC distribute joint press releases about recalls, and companies with websites have to post the information. Then it’s up to the company to share information about a recall on social media and elsewhere.
Charley Pereira of Nagshead, N. C., and Washington, D. C., became an advocate for child safety after his 10- month- old daughter Savannah was strangled by the cord of her baby monitor in 2010, a death that helped prompt recalls of some monitors. He has fought for stricter rules for the way baby monitors are created and succeeded in stopping companies from portraying baby monitors at an unsafe distance in advertising.
Pereira also worked to add safety labels to products to reduce their risks — and the need to be recalled.
There were 63 recalls in 2013 involving companies that used a Facebook or Twitter page within six months before the recall. Of these, the manufacturer only mentioned the product recall on Facebook in nine of those cases and on Twitter in eight, the report says.
Many people say they hear of about two to three recalls per year, when there are typically more than 100 recalls on children’s products alone each year, Cowles says. In 2013, there were 113 children’s products recalled.
“We had heard of different things being recalled from time to time, but not of any place to check and see if there was a database to search,” Grasseth said in an e- mail. “We did not realize that her portable crib was recalled until the coroner told us.”
But reaching the consumer isn’t the only problem. “Research has shown that consumers need to hear about recalls multiple times before they take action,” CPSC’s Wolfson says.
KID co- founder Linda Ginzel’s son, Danny Keysar, died when his crib collapsed on him in 1998. Unbeknownst to Ginzel, the crib had been recalled five years earlier. Ginzel says companies should promote recalls the way they promote products, and Cowles agrees.