CPSC 2011 Annual Report to the President and Congress

2011 2011 ANNUAL REPORT TO THE PRESIDENT AND CONGRESS United States Consumer Product Safety Commission United States Consumer Product Safety Commission Chairman Inez Tenenbaum Vice Chairman Commissioner Robert Adler Nancy Nord Commissioner Anne Northup Report to the President and Congress Pursuant to Section 209 of the Consumer Product Safety Improvement Act of 2008 The United States Consumer Product Safety Commission (CPSC) is submitting this report to the President, Congress, and the public, as required under section 27(j) (15 U.S.C. 2076(j)) of the Consumer Product Safety Act (CPSA), as amended by the Consumer Product Safety Improvement Act of 2008 (CPSIA). The content of this report is specified in the CPSA and the CPSIA. The report describes many of the activities performed to protect the public from hazardous consumer products. Readers may also be interested in the CPSC’s 2011 Performance and Accountability Report, required by the Government Performance and Results Act. All reports are available on the CPSC’s website at: www.cpsc.gov. The CPSC (or the Commission), established by Congress in 1972, is the federal regulatory body tasked with protecting children and families from unreasonable risks of injuries associated with consumer products. In 2010, the Commission launched a comprehensive strategic planning initiative to update its existing strategic plan and help align agency priorities to meet the challenges of the twenty-first century. For example, globalization and technological advances have increased the range of products on the market, as well as the challenges involved in overseeing and regulating thousands of product types that can be assembled across multiple countries. The resulting 2011–2016 Strategic Plan was developed through a consultative process involving input from consumer groups, industry stakeholders, and agency staff. It lays out an approach to achieve the CPSC’s broad mission of protecting the public against unreasonable risks of injury from consumer products through education, safety standards activities, regulation, and enforcement. The overarching vision for the strategy is that the CPSC is the recognized global leader in consumer product safety. Readers may view the strategic plan on the CPSC’s website at: http://www.cpsc.gov/cpscpub/pubs/reports/2011strategic.pdf. The CPSC stands for safety and has been effective in reducing consumer product-related injury and death rates by using a wide range of strategies to identify and address product safety hazards. These strategies are: • Hazard Identification and Monitoring: collecting information and monitoring injury and death statistics related to the use of products under the CPSC’s jurisdiction; • Safety Standards: participating in the development and strengthening of voluntary safety standards and developing mandatory standards; • Compliance and Enforcement: enforcing compliance with standards through compliance activities, such as recalls or other corrective actions, and litigating when necessary; • Public Outreach: educating consumers, families, foreign governments, and industry about product safety recalls, safety alerts, emerging hazards, and safety standards; and • Intergovernmental Coordination: coordinating on product safety issues with other governmental stakeholders. The report is organized around the five strategies noted above. 2011 REPORT TO THE PRESIDENT AND CONGRESS i CONTENTS HAZARD IDENTIFICATION AND MONITORING ........................................................................ 1 TABLE 1 - DEATHS ASSOCIATED WITH THE USE OF CERTAIN CONSUMER PRODUCTS ............................................................ 3 TABLE 2 - ESTIMATES OF HOSPITAL EMERGENCY ROOM-TREATED INJURIES ASSOCIATED WITH THE USE OF CERTAIN CONSUMER PRODUCTS ................................................................................................................................................................... 4 TABLE 3 – PERCENT OF HOSPITALIZED EMERGENCY ROOM-TREATED INJURIES ASSOCIATED WITH THE USE OF CERTAIN CONSUMER PRODUCTS ................................................................................................................................................................... 5 TABLE 4 - ESTIMATES OF THE COST OF EMERGENCY ROOM-TREATED CONSUMER PRODUCT INJURIES ......................... 6 PRODUCT GROUPS .............................................................................................................................................................................................. 7 SAFETY STANDARDS ......................................................................................................... 9 1) MANDATORY SAFETY STANDARDS ......................................................................................................................................................... 11 2) VOLUNTARY SAFETY STANDARDS .......................................................................................................................................................... 14 3) RESEARCH ACTIVITIES ............................................................................................................................................................................. 15 COMPLIANCE AND ENFORCEMENT .................................................................................... 19 1) VOLUNTARY RECALL ORDERS TAKEN BY IMPORTERS OR MANUFACTURERS ................................................................................. 21 2) LETTERS OF ADVICE TO IMPORTERS OR MANUFACTURERS ............................................................................................................... 57 3) COMMISSION DETERMINATIONS AND JUDICIAL ACTIONS ................................................................................................................ 138 PUBLIC OUTREACH ....................................................................................................... 142 1) CONSUMER OUTREACH ......................................................................................................................................................................... 144 2) DISSEMINATION OF TECHNICAL INFORMATION ................................................................................................................................ 152 3) COOPERATION BETWEEN COMMISSION OFFICIALS AND EXTERNAL STAKEHOLDERS ................................................................ 154 INTERGOVERNMENTAL COORDINATION ........................................................................... 166 1) MAJOR STATE-SUPPORTED SAFETY INITIATIVES ............................................................................................................................. 166 2) STATE AND LOCAL PROGRAMS............................................................................................................................................................. 166 3) SIGNIFICANT COMMUNICATION WITH OTHER GOVERNMENTAL AGENCIES AND OFFICES ......................................................... 167 To view the electronic version of this document with active links throughout, visit the CPSC website at: http://www.cpsc.gov/cpscpub/pubs/reports/2011rpt.pdf 2011 REPORT TO THE PRESIDENT AND CONGRESS Hazard Identification and Monitoring HAZARD IDENTIFICATION AND MONITORING The Commission, in fulfilling its mission to protect the public against unreasonable risks of injuries associated with consumer products, collects, reviews, and analyzes data on deaths, injuries, and societal costs associated with such products. This section describes the “Incidence of Injury and Effects to the Population” associated with products under the jurisdiction of the Commission. Four tables present summary data by totals and by age groups for: o product-related deaths; o product-related injuries; o percent of emergency room visits resulting in hospitalization; and o estimated costs of injuries. Product-Related Deaths (Table 1). The CPSC collects mortality data through contracts with each state. The CPSC reviews about 8,000 death certificates each year, covering unintentional product-related deaths from all 50 states and the District of Columbia. The CPSC purchases death certificates that have a high probability of consumer product involvement. However, because we do not purchase all death certificates, and because those we purchase do not always identify the products involved, the total number of actual product-related deaths may be higher than the number we report. While the deaths in this table represent product involvement, that involvement does not necessarily indicate causality. Product-Related Injuries (Tables 2 and 3). Each year, the CPSC collects information about product-related injuries through its National Electronic Injury Surveillance System (NEISS). This unique system provides statistically valid national estimates of product-related injuries from a probability sample of hospital emergency rooms (ERs) and is the foundation for many CPSC activities. These injury reports not only provide the means for estimating the magnitude of consumer product-related injuries in the United States, but they also provide a source for gathering further information concerning the nature and probable cause of accidents. Several foreign governments have modeled their national injury data-collection systems after the CPSC’s system. Annually, NEISS supplies more than 380,000 product-related cases from a sample of about 100 hospitals. The hospitals transmit incident information electronically,

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