2003 Recall Roundup: Check Your Home for Hazardous Consumer Products
For immediate release:
April 29, 2003
Contact: Stephanie Courcy
Vermont Department of Health
802-651-1978
BURLINGTON, VT - Despite recall notices and warnings, consumers continue to use products that have the potential to seriously injure or kill, according to the U.S. Consumer Product Safety Commission (CPSC). The CPSC unveiled a list of many common hazardous consumer products and urged consumers to use the list to check their homes and destroy or fix unsafe products.
“We don’t want to see deaths or serious injuries caused by previously recalled products or by products that don’t meet current safety standards. We want to prevent these needless tragedies,” said Stephanie Courcy of the Vermont Department of Health. “Through recalls, safety standards, and consumer information, CPSC helps make American homes safer by taking hazardous products off the market and identifying those products that need to be fixed to be safe.”
Below are some of the hazardous products that consumers are most likely to find in their homes:
- old power tools that present an electrocution hazard
- old extension cords that present a fire or shock hazard
- window blind cords with loops that can strangle children
- halogen torchiere floor lamps that can cause fires when combustibles such as drapes come too close to the bulb
- old cribs made before CPSC and industry safety standards that can entrap, strangle, or suffocate children
- Cadet heaters that could cause a fire
- hairdryers without immersion protection devices to prevent electrocution
- disposable and novelty lighters that are not child-resistant
- drawstrings around the neck on children’s jackets and sweatshirts that can catch and strangle children
Consumers can get the current list of dangerous products, as well as register to receive automatic announcements of all future CPSC recalls, at the agency’s Web site: www.cpsc.gov
In 2001 the Vermont legislature passed Act 42, Children’s Product Safety, which directs the Department of Health to create a comprehensive list of unsafe children’s products, recalled children’s products, and children’s products that do not conform to children’s product standards. Act 42 prohibits the selling or leasing of a listed product, the manufacturing and selling or leasing of a listed product, and the retrofitting and selling or leasing, without federal approval and documentation, of a listed product. More information about Act 42 can be found at http://www.healthyvermonters.info/hi/childsafety/act42.shtml