About 20 percent of the incidents reported on a new consumer-complaints database involved children’s products, and some occurred after the products were recalled, according to an analysis by a consumer advocacy group.
Kids in Danger found that 474 of the complaints posted from April through August involved everything from pacifiers to trampolines. About 44 percent of those cases resulted in injuries and an additional 1.5 percent resulted in death, the group reported.
But the most alarming pattern is that one in seven of the incidents involved a recalled product and more than half took place after the recall, showing that safety hazards continue even after products are cleared off store shelves, the group said.
With these results, the group aims to underscore the usefulness of the database found at in identifying emerging hazards. The database has been under attack by business groups and their allies since it was created as part of a sweeping product-safety reform measure in 2008.
Those critics, including the commission’s two Republican appointees, say they are worried that any inaccurate information in the database would unfairly damage a company’s reputation, hurt its bottom line and mislead consumers. They also argue that the database drains resources from a small agency with a heavy workload.
But advocates of the database say the public nature of this reporting system is a huge victory for consumers, who until now were kept in the dark about safety hazards until a product was recalled.
They say the database provides expansive protections for businesses and enables them to post comments side by side with the complaints.
“Now consumers can go on the database, look at a product they already have or something they’re thinking of buying and see if there are concerns about the product,” said Nancy Cowles, executive director of Kids in Danger. “We firmly believe that sunshine is always good for public policy and safety.”
The analysis shows that 14 percent of reported incidents involved recalled products and 57 percent of those took place after the product was recalled.
