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Due to reports of injuries and deaths, and concerns for children's safety, this past month the U.S. Consumer Product Safety Commission (CPSC) filed Administrative Complaints against the manufacturers of high-powered magnets and infant recliners.  The CPSC alleges that Magnicube Magnet Balls and Magnet Cubes contain defects in their design, packaging, warnings and instructions pose a substantial risk of injury to the public. The second complaint alleges that the Nap Nanny Generation One and Two, and Chill model infant recliners contain defects in their design, warnings and instructions, which pose a substantial risk of injury and death to infants. CPSC has received 80 reports of incidents involving ingestion of high powered magnets, resulting in 79 reports seeking medical intervention. CPSC is aware of five infants who died in infant recliners and has received a total of over 70 additional incident reports of children nearly falling out of the product.

The U.S. Consumer Product Safety Commission (CPSC) has recalled more than 11 million dangerous cribs since 2007. Detaching drop-side rails were associated with at least 32 infant suffocation and strangulation deaths since 2000. Additional deaths have occurred due to faulty or defective hardware. Federal crib standards had not been updated in nearly 30 years. But finally on December 28th, 2010 the CPSC approved new mandatory standards for full-size and non-full-size baby cribs. The crib standards will cover used as well as new cribs. The mandatory crib standards will: (1) stop the manufacture and sale of dangerous, traditional drop-side c

The U.S. Consumer Product Safety (CPSC) this week announced that after decreasing from 2007 to 2008,toddlers were injureddue to defective cribs and other nursery items rose 21% in 2009. There were 77,300 emergency room visits for products geared to young children in 2009 - in 2008, that figure was 63,700. 2009 saw the most nursery product recalls in history. The CPSC report also stated that nursery products and clothing surpassed toys with the most recalls, representing 28 and 27 percent of childrens product recalls, respectively; products were recalled mainly due to entrapment, fall, and choking hazards. Childrens clothing recalls also reached an unexpected high, due to strangulation hazards present in clothing with drawstrings and choking hazards from small detachable parts. Recalls in 2009

One of the big news stories during the summer of 2007 wasMattel's recall of nearlyone million toys made in China because of lead paint. Other recalls followed almost immediately. These numbers pale in comparison to yesterday's recall announced by the U.S. Consumer Product Safety Commission (CPSC) of TEN million Fisher-Price children's products due to dangerous conditions posing choking and other hazards.Fourteen models of the Fishe

Theyre a staple of toddlers birthday parties, childrens holiday parties and other seemingly carefree events. Your children take off their footwear and climb into the inflated bounce house and youre free from worry (and perhaps bother) for a few minutes. Or are you? If the allegations in California Attorney General Edmund G. Brown Jr.s lawsuit against several companies involved in manufacturing children's bounce houses are correct, some of the inflatable structures contain unsafe amounts of lead in their vinyl covering. The main exposure pathway from the bounce house to the child is hand-to-mouth. Lead is transferred from the vinyl to a child's hand during play and then to the mouth. Testing done by the Center for the Environmental Health and the Attorney General's office reportedly found that some of the vinyl in the bounce houses contains lead levels that violate both federal and

When considering the risk of young children choking, thoughts tend to center more upon toys than upon food. But that can cause the risk of choking on food to be overlooked. Statistics currently on the website of the Centers for Disease Control state that in 2000, 160 children ages 14 years or younger died from an obstruction of the respiratory tract due to inhaled or ingested foreign bodies. Of these, 41% were caused by food items and 59% by nonfood objects. For every choking-related death, there are more than 100 visits to U.S. emergency departments.The American Academy of Pediatrics (AAP), noting that many of the prevention strategies currently in place to prevent choking on toys have not yet been implemented to prevent choking on food, issued a policy statement yesterdayin connection with an article titled Prevention of Choking Among Children that will appear in

The Consumer Product Safety Improvement Act of 2008(CPSIA) directed the U.S. Consumer Product Safety Commission (CPSC) to assess and report to the House and Senate enforcement efforts, difficulties encountered, as well as recommendations for improvement to the lower numerical level limits for lead content of childrens products theCPSIA established. The CPSC issued its report on January 15, 2010, noting that it has continued to find excessive lead levels in childrens toys and products.Most of the lead content violations were identified by screening childrens products at ports using x-ray fluorescence (XRF) technology. In these cases, the violative products were seized and never entered into the U.S. marketplace. During fiscal year 2009, CPSC staff also sought and obtained voluntary recalls in six lead-conten

The 2009 Trouble in Toyland report is the 24th annual Public Interest Research Group (PIRG) survey of toy safety. This report provides safety guidelines for parents when purchasing toys for small children and provides examples of toys currently on store shelves that may pose potential safety hazards. This years report focused on three categories of toy hazards: toys that may pose choking hazards, toys that are excessively loud, and toys that contain the toxic chemicals lead and phthalates. This years report is interesting because it is the first year that any effect would be felt from The Consumer Product Safety Improvement Act of 2008 (CPSIA), which greatly strengthened the clout of the U.S. Consumer Safety Product Commission (CPSC) to promulgate and enforce rules. Last year we wrote about toy hazards the CPSC identified for

Home renovation, repair, and painting activities cause elevated blood lead levels in children no doubt about it. A 1997 analysis conducted by the New York State Department of Health (NYSDOH) indicated that home renovation, repair, and painting (RRP) activities were important sources of lead exposure among children with blood lead levels (BLLs) >20 g/dL in New York state. The Centers for Disease Control and Preventions Morbidity and Mortality Weekly Report dated January 30, 2009 identified RRP activities as being the probable source of lead exposure in 139 (14%) of the 972 children in New York with BLLs of over 20 g/dL. But importantly, the majority of offenders are resident owners or tenants as opposed to contractors. Contractors performed a small percentage (6.5%) of RRP work related to elevated BLLs in New York

Last year was a record-setter when it came to recalls and warnings about dangerous childrens toys, especially lead paint laden toys imported from China. In response to the much-publicized controversy, Congress strengthened the Consumer Product Safety Act of 1972 (CPSA) to prohibit the sale and distribution of childrens toy or child care articles containing excessive levels of toxic substances beginning on February 10th, 2009. Almost incredibly, the agency charged with enforcing the CPSA, the General Counsel of the United States Consumer Product Safety Commission (the Commission), actually tried to weaken the enforcement of the law by issuing an advisory opinion letter that would have permitted the sale of toxic items after February 10, 2009, if the products were manufactured prior to that date. U.S.