Online: Investigate Product Safety on the Web

The U.S. Consumer Product Safety Commission is charged with protecting the public from unreasonable risks of serious injury or death from more than 15,000 types of consumer products under the agency's jurisdiction. It works to ensure the safety of consumer products ' such as toys, cribs, power tools, cigarette lighters, and household chemicals, and claims it has contributed significantly to the 30% decline in the rate of deaths and injuries associated with consumer products over the past 30 years. The site, www.cpsc.gov, offers information (in English and Spanish) that could help protect consumers and families from products that pose a fire, electrical, chemical, or mechanical hazard, or can injure children.

The home page provides links to several topics, including: Recalls and Product Safety News; Neighborhood Safety Network Signup; Report an Unsafe Product (Report an incident with a product that caused an injury; Medical Professionals and Fire/Police Investigators: file MECAP, incident reports); Voluntary Standards/Research Reports; Sign Up for E-mail Announcements; and view and order CPSC Publications on a wide variety of consumer safety issues.

The list of recent recalls included children's outerwear, tower heaters, smokers, leaf blowers, routers, safety kits, and baseball gloves. 'CPSC's Most Wanted' were window blinds, Lane cedar chests, old cribs, and cadet heaters. Window blinds have been recalled because children can strangle in the cords. In 1994, CPSC worked with the window covering industry to redesign new window blinds to eliminate the outer loop on the end of the pull cords and provide free repair kits so consumers could fix their existing blinds. Window blinds sold since 1995 no longer have pull cords ending in loops. The link tells consumers how to get more information and send for a free kit to fix the blinds. Certain Lane cedar chests manufactured before 1987 were recalled due to a lock design that resulted in the suffocation of six children. The company redesigned its lock after 1987. The link to Old Cribs describes how to check for a safe crib.

Visit the Press Room to obtain three kinds of information: Media Information (Press Releases, Current Issues and Story Suggestions, Issues Areas and CPSC Contacts and Publications Lists); Commissioners' Statements, Briefing papers, and Reports; and Media Resources, which include video news releases, downloads, audio clips and radio sound bites, samples of recalled products, special media e-mail and fax lists.

If you go to Press Releases, you can find information on more than 4000 product recalls and recall alerts using the various searches on the page organized by date, product type, description, category, company, and press release number.

The Publication List can be searched by topic, title, or category. Categories include All Terrain Vehicle Safety, Arts and Crafts Safety, Household Products Safety, Indoor Air Quality, Consumer Products Safety Review, Playground Safety, and Poison Prevention. All CPSC publications ' including exclusive Web-only content ' are available to consumers to print for free through the category links above. To order hard copies of any of the Neighborhood Safety Library Publications or Technical Reports and Handbooks listed in the general categories above, send an e-mail to [email protected]. It takes about 3-4 weeks for delivery. The Consumer Product Safety Review is available in pdf or hard copy by subscription. A quarterly journal, it offers an in-depth look at the latest hazards associated with home and recreational products, as well as the most significant current product recalls.

If you click on 'What's Popular,' you'll get a list of new issues and popular issues. New Issues include CPSC's Hurricane Response; CPSC Nanomaterial Statement (pdf); Vinyl Lunch Box Q&A; Information on the 2005 National Injury Prevention and Control Conference on Injury and Violence in America; CPSC Hazard Screening Reports; and, Presentations from the Understanding the Poison Prevention Packaging Act workshop held on March 16, 2005. Popular Issues include CPSC Staff Study of New CCA-treated Wood: Effectiveness of Surface Coatings (1st year results), May 2005; Fact Sheet: Chro-mated Copper Arsenate (CCA) Treated Wood in Playground Equipment and Chairman's Statement, a Briefing Package Regarding Petition HP 01-3 to Ban Chromated Copper Arsenate (CCA)-Treated Wood in Playground Equipment; and Drowning Prevention.

The U.S. Consumer Product Safety Commission is charged with protecting the public from unreasonable risks of serious injury or death from more than 15,000 types of consumer products under the agency's jurisdiction. It works to ensure the safety of consumer products ' such as toys, cribs, power tools, cigarette lighters, and household chemicals, and claims it has contributed significantly to the 30% decline in the rate of deaths and injuries associated with consumer products over the past 30 years. The site, www.cpsc.gov, offers information (in English and Spanish) that could help protect consumers and families from products that pose a fire, electrical, chemical, or mechanical hazard, or can injure children.

The home page provides links to several topics, including: Recalls and Product Safety News; Neighborhood Safety Network Signup; Report an Unsafe Product (Report an incident with a product that caused an injury; Medical Professionals and Fire/Police Investigators: file MECAP, incident reports); Voluntary Standards/Research Reports; Sign Up for E-mail Announcements; and view and order CPSC Publications on a wide variety of consumer safety issues.

The list of recent recalls included children's outerwear, tower heaters, smokers, leaf blowers, routers, safety kits, and baseball gloves. 'CPSC's Most Wanted' were window blinds, Lane cedar chests, old cribs, and cadet heaters. Window blinds have been recalled because children can strangle in the cords. In 1994, CPSC worked with the window covering industry to redesign new window blinds to eliminate the outer loop on the end of the pull cords and provide free repair kits so consumers could fix their existing blinds. Window blinds sold since 1995 no longer have pull cords ending in loops. The link tells consumers how to get more information and send for a free kit to fix the blinds. Certain Lane cedar chests manufactured before 1987 were recalled due to a lock design that resulted in the suffocation of six children. The company redesigned its lock after 1987. The link to Old Cribs describes how to check for a safe crib.

Visit the Press Room to obtain three kinds of information: Media Information (Press Releases, Current Issues and Story Suggestions, Issues Areas and CPSC Contacts and Publications Lists); Commissioners' Statements, Briefing papers, and Reports; and Media Resources, which include video news releases, downloads, audio clips and radio sound bites, samples of recalled products, special media e-mail and fax lists.

If you go to Press Releases, you can find information on more than 4000 product recalls and recall alerts using the various searches on the page organized by date, product type, description, category, company, and press release number.

The Publication List can be searched by topic, title, or category. Categories include All Terrain Vehicle Safety, Arts and Crafts Safety, Household Products Safety, Indoor Air Quality, Consumer Products Safety Review, Playground Safety, and Poison Prevention. All CPSC publications ' including exclusive Web-only content ' are available to consumers to print for free through the category links above. To order hard copies of any of the Neighborhood Safety Library Publications or Technical Reports and Handbooks listed in the general categories above, send an e-mail to [email protected]. It takes about 3-4 weeks for delivery. The Consumer Product Safety Review is available in pdf or hard copy by subscription. A quarterly journal, it offers an in-depth look at the latest hazards associated with home and recreational products, as well as the most significant current product recalls.

If you click on 'What's Popular,' you'll get a list of new issues and popular issues. New Issues include CPSC's Hurricane Response; CPSC Nanomaterial Statement (pdf); Vinyl Lunch Box Q&A; Information on the 2005 National Injury Prevention and Control Conference on Injury and Violence in America; CPSC Hazard Screening Reports; and, Presentations from the Understanding the Poison Prevention Packaging Act workshop held on March 16, 2005. Popular Issues include CPSC Staff Study of New CCA-treated Wood: Effectiveness of Surface Coatings (1st year results), May 2005; Fact Sheet: Chro-mated Copper Arsenate (CCA) Treated Wood in Playground Equipment and Chairman's Statement, a Briefing Package Regarding Petition HP 01-3 to Ban Chromated Copper Arsenate (CCA)-Treated Wood in Playground Equipment; and Drowning Prevention.