the consumer society is happy now (for a while)
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Here’s a task that new parents should tackle after the baby shower but before the thank you notes: Filling out product registration cards.
Once an opportunity for companies to glean marketing information from consumers, product registration cards now a means for manufacturers to promptly and directly notify families and caregivers about recalls. Under new federal law, the registration cards must be included with many infant and toddler nursery items constructed after June 2010.
“Product registration cards will not be effective if they remain in the box,” said Rachel Weintraub, director of product safety and senior counsel for the public watchdog group Consumer Federation of America. “This only asks for the minimum information necessary to contact you.”
The new requirement is part of the 2008 Consumer Products Safety Improvement law, which also requires the creation of mandatory standards for many durable infant and toddler products. Updated standards for cribs have just been proposed and are expected to be adopted by the end of the year, for example.
Every week at least two juvenile or infant products are recalled, and 80 children are killed each year by juvenile products, said Nancy Cowles, executive director of Kids In Danger, a nonprofit dedicated to improving children’s product safety.
“These are deaths involving the very products that are intended to keep their children safe,” she said.
Notifying consumers directly about a recall of a product they purchased or received will help improve their effectiveness, said Inez Tenenbaum, chairwoman of the Consumer Product Safety Commission. Recall announcements are posted on the CPSC’s website as well as some manufacturers and retailers, and also e-mailed to those who sign up for the CPSC’s mailing list, but those are indirect ways to inform customers of hazards.
“Take the time to fill it out,” she said last week when federal officials announced the initiative. “It is so important for you and your child’s safety. It will be successful as long as the consumer participates.”
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