CHICAGO — Thanks to Kids in Danger for honoring me Thursday night with its 2011 Best Friend award. I have been writing about product safety issues for 13 years, with a special focus on children’s product safety. It is particularly gratifying to be recognized by Kids in Danger — a group whose founders were part of a year-long investigation I did on the recall system in 1999 for the...
When it comes to taking care of babies, while some is just as it was when you were a baby, a lot has changed. Safety has become a bigger part of the equation as we’ve learned that some of the old practices cost infants their lives. That means no blankets or quilts on or under a baby. It means no over-dependence on baby monitors. It means knowing that the...
The Better Business Bureau has issued a new warning about a wire-transfer fraud that scammers have apparently disguised as a mystery shopping job. A company calling itself Translucent Shoppers turns out to be just as invisible to U.S. and consumer protection officials as it’s supposed to be to the companies that would-be employees would test, the BBB said. Translucent Shoppers’ listed brick-and-mortar address in Portland, Maine doesn’t exist, the...
Despite the earlier recall of 1 million Maclaren strollers of the fingertip amputations of children, the government today to re-announce the recall because of how many children continue to get injured. The recall in November 2009 drew considerable attention because of the number of strollers, the reputation of Maclaren as a trendy brand and the nature of the injuries to small children. At least 37 more children have injured...
When it comes to food from China, I’m sorry I just don’t trust it. There have been just too many incidents there of people trying to cheat the system and killing people and pets in the process. Melamine contamination is only the most obvious example. Food safety in China is a moving target and it’s not OK to be the canaries in that coalmine as the world’s biggest nation...
In an extraordinary move, the U.S. Consumer Product Safety Commission has declared as dangerous tens of thousands of “metoo” clip-on table top chairs sold under the phil&teds brand name and is warning consumers to stop using them after “numerous” injuries were reported. Typically, through a sometimes drawn out process, companies and the government negotiate the terms of a recall. That can mean anything from withdrawing the product to,...
Grape tomatoes, a small sweeter version of their larger cousins, are being recalled nationwide over concerns they could be contaminated with Salmonella. A string of recalls started on April 29 when Immokalee, Fla.-based Six L’s said it was notifying consumers and commercial customers over a single lot of the tomatoes that tested positive for Salmonella in an inspection by the U.S. Department of Agriculture. The USDA inspection took place...
For anyone with toddlers or small kids at home, window blinds and shades are a potential killer. In recent years, it has become clear just how dangerous the cords in the front and back of window coverings can be. Hundreds of kids have been seriously hurt or killed after getting tangled in the cords. Parents magazine’s website, Parents.com, asked me to help consumers to sort through what is safe...
Osama Bin Laden’s dead and you’re not going to watch a video of him being killed on Facebook. So don’t click the tempting links being dangled in front of you. It might not be al-Qaeda seeking revenge, but this is one heap of trouble easy to avoid if you know that it’s coming. “Watch the Osama Shoot Down Video,” has been the typical headline, sometimes coming as an invitation...
If anyone knows anything about the U.S. Consumer Product Safety Commission, they’d know they don’t use battering rams or conduct “raids” on candy stores. The fuss over Kinder Eggs, a European candy that has been banned in this country, got a bit overblown when a story on Fox News’ website created a fantasy version of what actually took place. The Fox story quotes a local Manhattan news site,...
