Playpens Recalled

You report 9.6 million playpens are being recalled on the order of the Consumer Product Safety Commission because eight children have died since 1982 (Nov. 25). The action highlights everything wrong with that commission. How can anyone justify recalling 9.6-million playpens when the cause of death may have been something else? When the real cause of the deaths was probably lack of proper supervision?

If each playpen was in use for only one year, that’s 3.5 billion days of use and an accident rate of 0.0000002%. You cannot value the life of a child. You can calculate stupidity. The order will cost hundreds of millions of dollars with no benefit to anyone.

THOMAS KEISER

Arcadia