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COPYRIGHT 2002 Mothering Magazine
We all want babies to be safe. I am relieved to see the faxes that come every week from the Consumer Product Safety Commission (CPSC) announcing recalls of infant products. I'm happy there's a government organization that oversees product safety. I'm not pleased, however, about the recent forays of CPSC into the area of infant sleep customs. The CPSC has been laudable in announcing the dangers to infants from soft bedding, and the staff works diligently to recall unsafe products. However, in September 1999 and May of this year, the CPSC moved into territory over which they have questionable authority. On May 6 during an international tradeshow of the Juvenile Products Marketing Association (JPMA), the CPSC issued a press release that stated, "Don't place a baby to sleep in an adult bed." The press release equates the danger of a baby in an adult bed to the danger of soft bedding or prone sleeping. The evidence, however, does not support this.
While I disagree with these statements of the CPSC, it is also dangerous advice. By prescribing safe behavior rather than describing safe sleep environments, the CPSC fails to reach those most at risk for infant death and provides an unprecedented opportunity for the marketing of cribs, playpens, and cosleepers. Most of the deaths the CPSC analyzed occurred in poor neighborhoods, among families who likely cannot afford a crib. These are not the families who will be reached by announcements in retail establishments. By failing to provide information on safe sleep in any setting, the CPSC has ignored the needs of the most at-risk population.
Protecting people at risk is just what CPSC was founded to do. In the 1960s, consumer activists educated the public about the dangers of unsafe products and assigned the responsibility for product safety to government. In 1970, the National Commission on Product Safety, a bipartisan commission, found that many common household products were unnecessarily hazardous. The commission reported that 20 million people were injured in their homes each year by these products. Thirty thousand were killed and 110,000 permanently disabled at a cost to the federal government of $5.5 billion each year.
This report prompted Congress to create a new product safety agency, the Consumer Product Safety Commission, established in 1972 by the Consumer Product Safety Act (CPSA). The act was passed soon after the enactment of new strict automobile legislation prompted by Ralph Nader's expose of the auto industry, Unsafe at Any Speed. It was a time when consumer rights were at a high point, and no one argued with the legitimacy of consumer protection.
Despite its great promise and noble mission, the CPSC has been continually plagued by budget limitations and political wrangling since its inception in 1972. Even though product-related injuries are 45 percent higher today than they were in 1970, the CPSC has the smallest budget of any federal health and safety agency. As a small agency, it has been vulnerable to the...
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