Holes in our product safety net.(Memo To Members)(Editorial)

What if your coffeemaker catches fire when it's warming your coffee? Or sharp metal strips on your new sneakers send you to the hospital for stitches? Those very products, with those problems, were recently recalled by major manufacturers in cooperation with the Consumer Product Safety Commission (CPSC).

An estimated 22,000 people are killed and 29.5 million are injured each year while using consumer products, including coffeemakers and sneakers. The CPSC is the federal agency directed by Congress since 1972 to "protect the public against unreasonable risks of injuries and deaths" associated with such products. It has jurisdiction over about 15,000 types of consumer goods, though it sets the standards for only a tiny fraction. (Most standards, if they exist, are set by the industries.) Consumers Union, which has long promoted product safety, is especially concerned about the problems confronting this critical agency.

Lack of compliance. Current CPSC regulations require companies to promptly report to the commission if they know or suspect that their products have safety problems. This duty, however, is routinely ignored by manufacturers even though they are usually the first to receive consumer complaints. Failure to report promptly can lead to CPSC-imposed penalties on manufacturers, such as the $1.1 million fine levied on Fisher-Price in June for not reporting defective Power Wheels vehicles. But lack of sufficient resources has severely limited the agency's ability to fully police the marketplace.

Limited public access to key information. Under current law, the commission can't release information in its files about a specific product (unless it is deemed an "imminent hazard") without first sending the information to the manufacturer for comments and waiting up to 20 working days for a reply. Then a consumer or reporter seeking information about the safety of a specific product can wait months to learn about injuries already reported to the CPSC.

The commission is the only health and safety agency to have such official limits placed on public ...