More Errors by the CPSC

From Dan: Another article in the NY Times today about the Consumer Product Safety Commission's failures to protect people from unsafe products, this time in the case of an unsafe aerosol tile sealant product that severely hurt people's lungs.

As with the CPSC's oversight of toys, this article illustrated what happens when no safety testing is done before a product reaches store shelves. And, even after people started getting hurt, the CPSC lacked the ability and resources to adequately evaluate the product and lacked the follow though to enforce a proper recall. The result was people getting hurt for more than a year after the original recall.

This is the same pattern of partial recalls followed by continuing injuries followed by expanded recalls a year later that we saw with Magnetix toys. The CPSC is suffering from gross neglect and mismanagement, purposefully arranged by the current administration whose interests seem to be in sustaining corporate profits.

It seems to us that the current iteration of the CPSC is about safety in name only. Reading this latest article, you might think of it as the Corporate Profits Security Commission.

We continue to assert that a global free market requires strong oversight. The market itself offers few ways to protect ordinary people from unsafe toys or tile sealants. We need to be able to trust the products we buy.