Product Safety Standards

The Times recently ran an article (June 5) on a report we did at the U.S. Consumer Product Safety Commission on baseball safety. The CPSC is the small federal agency charged with overseeing the safety of some 15,000 consumer products. We issued our report on baseball safety equipment to give parents valuable information that could help keep kids away from hospital emergency rooms and out on the playing field.

In an otherwise excellent article on our findings, your reporter stated that the CPSC “has not put forth any standards for products since the 1980s.” That is simply not true. Setting standards is an important part of what we do at the CPSC, in addition to seeing that unsafe products are recalled from store shelves and people’s homes; collecting injury data and trends; and providing consumers with information about product safety.

Where necessary, CPSC issues mandatory standards--standards with the force of law--that improve product safety, prevent injuries and save lives. Some examples of important safety standards we have set over the past 10 years include requiring child-resistant packaging for many products that could unintentionally poison children; banning specific products, like lawn darts, which could kill or injure children; and labeling for toys that could represent a choking hazard to children. While we only use mandatory regulation as a last resort, we do regulate when the circumstances and public safety require it.b

In addition, every year the CPSC works with industry to set between 40 and 50 voluntary standards.

ANN BROWN, Chairman

Consumer Product Safety

Commission, Washington