Gaping holes in product safety net
When Mattel Inc. said last week that it was recalling about 19 million Chinese-made toys -- the El Segundo company’s second such recall in two weeks -- it was an illustration of how efficiently consumer product safety regulations can work when all concerned are committed to protecting the public.
It was also a troubling reminder that most product recalls result largely from the honor system: A company recognizes it has a problem and contacts regulators to have that product removed from the marketplace.
“All we’ve seen in the case of Mattel is crisis management,” said Rachel Weintraub, director of product safety for the Consumer Federation of America.
“A better system would be to avoid the crisis and get to safer products from the very beginning.”
Credit where credit’s due: When Mattel learned that millions of its toys, including Barbie play sets and Batman action figures, contained lead paint or magnets that kids could swallow, it contacted the federal Consumer Product Safety Commission and initiated a voluntary recall.
The company also sought a separate recall this month of about 1.5 million Chinese-made toys that contain lead paint.
“If Mattel discovers a potential issue involving the safety or quality of our toys, we notify regulators at the CPSC that an issue could be emerging, even before we can identify the specifics,” Jules Andres, a Mattel spokeswoman, said by e-mail.
“So, while we’re doing testing to further identify and specify the issue, the CPSC and others are aware that we’re working on something,” she said. “In this case, we requested that the CPSC issue a fast-track recall. And they did so.”
But what if a company decides instead to ignore such problems? Scott Wolfson, a spokesman for the commission, acknowledged that this could happen. But he said that if enough people were injured or killed, regulators would take action on their own.
“If a company doesn’t use its discretion properly, and there are delays, we will still eventually get a recall,” Wolfson said.
At least that’s how it’s supposed to be. It took an act of Congress this month to restore some teeth to the commission, albeit on a temporary basis, because President Bush has failed for more than a year to fill an open seat on the three-person panel.
According to the Consumer Product Safety Act, two commissioners can conduct business for six months after a third commissioner resigns. In July 2006, Hal Stratton, a Bush appointee, left to take a job with a law firm that specializes in shooting down class-action lawsuits filed by consumers.
As of Jan. 15, the commission lacked a quorum and was restricted from taking action on regulatory matters or civil penalties. In March, Bush nominated Michael Baroody, a top manufacturing-industry lobbyist, to serve as chairman and thus oversee regulation of the business that for years provided him with a livelihood.
Baroody withdrew from consideration for the post in May, just one day before his Senate hearing was to have taken place. He’d been asked by senators to provide copies of his severance agreement with the National Assn. of Manufacturers.
No other nominee is in sight. It’s been seven months since the Consumer Product Safety Commission has had full and continual authority to levy fines or force a recall.
That power has been restored only for the remainder of the year thanks to Sen. Mark Pryor (D.-Ark.), who slipped a one-sentence provision into a recently approved homeland security bill that allows the two remaining commission members to comprise a quorum, at least until January.
As an example of how weak product safety regulation has become, witness the example of Kazuma Pacific, a Texas company that imports a kid-size all-terrain vehicle from China called the Meerkat 50 Youth ATV.
The commission says the Meerkat 50, which is intended for kids ages 6 to 11, places children “at risk of injury or death due to multiple safety defects,” including a lack of front brakes, no parking brake and the vehicle’s ability to start while in gear.
But when the commission asked Kazuma to voluntarily recall the Meerkat 50 from the market, the company refused.
Kazuma’s president, Jason Tsai, said by e-mail Friday that a safer version of the Meerkat 50 was on the way to the United States.
Be that as it may, Wolfson, the commission spokesman, was unable to say whether the temporarily invigorated commission would seek a mandatory recall of the current model.
Voluntary recalls are the norm because they can be done relatively quickly. Mandatory recalls can take months to work their way through the legal system.
Meanwhile, the commission, which is responsible for ensuring the safety of more than 15,000 types of consumer products, must make do with about 400 staffers, less than half its workforce of 30 years ago.
More often than not, U.S. companies will do the stand-up thing and report any problems, albeit after a product reaches store shelves. Sometimes they won’t.
“We need to stop these products before they reach the marketplace,” said Weintraub at the Consumer Federation of America. What’s needed, she added, is an independent third party that can test products before they go on sale.
Barring that, we need a Consumer Product Safety Commission that’s able to do the job required of it -- fully funded, fully staffed, fully committed.
“The commission can either continue to decline in staff, resources and stature to the point where it is no longer an effective force in consumer protection,” Thomas Moore, one of the two remaining commissioners, said in a recent statement, “or with the support of Congress it can regain the important place in American society it was originally designed to have.”
That is, unless you think the honor system is sufficient to keep your kids safe.
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