On Sept. 20, 2007, my wife and I awoke to the sounds of our baby daughter screaming. When I ran in to her room, I found that her crib front railing had dislodged from the side rail, catching her hand in between. She was only a little bruised, but it could have been much worse.
The crib model was recalled the following month by the Consumer Product Safety Commission (CPSC) because of 84 similar problems.
This incident did not need to happen at all. My daughter’s experience, and many others like it, might have been avoided if a consumer complaint database like the one the CPSC recently created had existed.
That database went live in March. It was created as part of a law called the Consumer Product Safety Improvement Act, which was passed with the overwhelming support of both parties in Congress and signed into law by President George W. Bush in 2008.
The saferproducts.gov database makes it easier for people to tell safety regulators, and other consumers, when they experience product safety hazards.
But new legislation, H.R. 1939, is now under consideration in Congress. The bill would make it tougher for consumers to report incidents like the one that happened to my family. That is why I am opposed to H.R. 1939, which would effectively hamstring the consumer complaint database and weaken the law in many other ways.
After our 2007 incident, I was fearful that other children would become entrapped in similar cribs. I called the company that distributed them, Bassettbaby, a unit of the well-known furniture maker Bassett. The vice president of the company told me that mine was the only complaint the company had received about the crib, and that it was not going to take any action to notify other consumers who might have bought one, part of a Wendy Bellisimo Collection line sold exclusively at Babies “R” Us.
That made me extremely upset and worried for other children using the same crib, so I contacted the CPSC.
Then I emailed children’s product designer Wendy Bellissimo. Weeks later, Bellissimo’s husband called back and said they had not heard anything about any problems with the cribs and that they were horrified by what I had told them.
Eventually, a CPSC investigator came to our house and took away the faulty crib. And a month later the CPSC announced a recall of 8,900 of the cribs and cautioned parents to stop using them.
To my astonishment, Bassettbaby had already received 84 similar reports of bolts loosening on the cribs prior to my initial report to them.
Had the database existed in 2007, I could have warned both the CPSC and other parents much more quickly and easily.
Congress owes it to all consumers, especially children and parents, to uphold the vital consumer protections contained in the Consumer Product Safety Improvement Act.
That is why lawmakers should vote “no” on H.R. 1939 and make sure our families have the tools and protections they need to keep their children safe.
Andrew Hartung
Manalapan