DC Insider

Washington (March 6, 2008) — The U.S. Government Accountability
Office (GAO) today added the 2010 census to its “High-Risk” list of
federal areas in need of either broad-based transformation or specific
reforms to prevent waste, fraud, abuse, and mismanagement.

Although a regular update to its high-risk list is set for 2009, GAO
decided it was important to flag the census now because of the survey’s
impact on everything from the apportionment of congressional seats to
the distribution of billions of dollars in federal funds.

GAO added the upcoming census to the high-risk list due to a
combination of long-standing deficiencies and emerging challenges,
including shortcomings in the Census Bureau’s management of information
technology, weak performances by technology that the Bureau plans to use
for data collection, uncertainty of cost estimates, and the elimination
of several dress rehearsal activities.

David M. Walker, Comptroller General of the United States, announced
the addition, saying, “Our objective for the high-risk list is to bring
attention and persuade policymakers of the need for action sooner rather
than later. In the case of the decennial census, proactive measures now,
well in advance of the actual census, can do much to ensure accurate and
reliable outcomes in 2010.”

GAO testified on this issue before the Senate Committee on Homeland
Security and Government Affairs on Wednesday, in its continuing focus on
preparations for the 2010 Census. In addition, the Comptroller General
sent a letter to the Secretary of Commerce alerting him to the concerns
leading to GAO’s decision

The addition of the decennial census leaves 28 programs and activities
on GAO’s current high-risk list.  There were 14 areas on the high-risk
list when the program was launched in 1990.  Since then, there have been
34 additions, 18 removals, and two areas that were consolidated.  The
list is updated every two years and released at the start of each new
Congress to help set oversight agendas.  Congress and the executive
branch have increasingly turned to GAO’s high-risk list for ideas on how
to improve government economy, efficiency, effectiveness, and equity.

By Joseph S. Enoch

February 18, 2008

The head of the Consumer Product Safety Commission today said the agency will be better suited to protect children from dangerous toys in 2008 and congratulated the toy industry for its new voluntary safety measures.Speaking at the annual Toy Industry Association’s (TIA) American International Toy Fair in New York City, Nancy Nord, acting chairwoman of the CPSC, said that with increased funds guaranteed for 2008, the agency will have more inspectors, scientists and field officers ensuring the safety of children.

The omnibus appropriations bill for FY 2008, passed in December 2007, increased the agency’s 2008 funding by $17 million, the largest increase since 1974, the year after congress founded the agency.

Nord gave a few more details on the agency’s Import Surveillance Division which she unveiled at the National Press Club on Jan. 7, 2008.

“We will have more scientists in our laboratories and inspectors in the field and ports,” Nord said. “For the first time, we will have full-time inspectors at the busiest U.S. ports.”

“We’re upgrading our information technology access so that we have real-time access to information about shipments headed for our shores,” Nord continued. “We will be setting up special programs for some key product categories including toys.”

Press pummeled

Nord, who rarely makes public appearances, took the opportunity to chastise the media for its coverage of the recent rash of toy recalls, just as she did while addressing the National Press Club.“Some of the coverage did not bring clarity to what represented the greatest dangers of accident and injury,” she said.

Her announcement follows the TIA’s passage of stricter voluntary proposals that its members, 80 percent of the toy industry, must follow. The TIA will release details of the new standards on Friday, after the toy fair has concluded. But many say the new proposals are for a new testing and verification system that will include design hazard analysis, auditing manufacturing process controls and product safety testing.

Nord said the TIA’s proposals will greatly improve the protection of children.

“I think the leadership of the industry should be congratulated and we worked very closely with them to make sure that this program provides the safety that Americans expect and I’m looking forward to its roll out,” Nord said.

“It would be virtually impossible to test and inspect every single toy,” Nord said. “The toy manufacturers, the importers, the retailers, they can make the difference here. There’s no reason why they, the financial beneficiaries of the toy trade, can’t self-certify that every toy imported into the United States and put on the toy shelf has a design for safety and is in compliance with all applicable safety standards.”

Toys “R” Us and Wal-Mart also announced new standards on Friday, implementing their own inspection system along with tougher lead and Pthalates standards. Pthalates are chemicals that have been linked to reproductive and birth defects.

Many consumer advocates and CPSC representatives say that with the increased media scrutiny and new voluntary standards, there are likely to be less lead paint dangers and that parents need to be watchful of the traditional toy dangers.

Greatest dangers

“Lead paint is still something we’re looking out for,” said CPSC spokesman Scott Wolfson. “But the greatest dangers still are choke hazards, magnets, children riding bicycles into traffic, dangers like those.”

“I think there’s definitely a heightened awareness about safety,” Chrissy Cianflone, director of program operations at the nonprofit Safe Kids USA, said. “Parents … should look out for the age designation of toys to make sure that if they have a child under the age of three that they’re purchasing toys specifically for that child and if they have children that are of varying ages that the youngest child doesn’t get their hands on the small parts of the older child’s toys to make sure that they store their toys separately.”

Cianflone also said parents should supervise their children while they play and sign up for the CPSC’s recall alerts.

Senate bill

Nord, a Bush appointee, also took the opportunity to share her displeasure with the Senate version of a bill that will greatly increase the agency’s funds for at least the next three years.

“The House has passed legislation by a unanimous vote, amending our statutes,” Nord said. “They did this just before Christmas. The Senate is expected to take up its version in the next week or two. While I fully support the House bill, I am concerned about provisions in the Senate version.”

The Senate bill provides much more funding for a longer period of time than the House bill and contains many provisions that has consumer advocates cheering and industry representatives clamoring.

When ConsumerAffairs.Com asked what the exact provisions are that concern her, she gave an almost identical response to what she said Jan.7.

“On the senate side, the process was a bit different,” Nord said. “The bill that came out of the committee had some technical flaws as well as some substantive concerns.”

—

Photo by Joe Enoch

February 27, 2008

Congress got an earful today as it held hearings on legislation that would provide more funding and authority to the Food and Drug Administration (FDA). Consumer and industry groups said the agency is falling short in its mission to ensure the safety of drug and food products.

The FDA is suffering from a crisis in leadership, a lack of congressional oversight and a dangerous reliance on the pharmaceutical industry to bankroll its operations, Sidney M. Wolfe, M.D., director of the Health Research Group at Public Citizen, said.While these problems have existed for years, they have become glaringly obvious in recent weeks with news stories about deaths linked to drugs such as the anticoagulant heparin, which is made in China, and Trasylol, a drug that reduces bleeding during surgery and may be responsible for thousands of deaths a year, Wolfe said.

“The situation at the FDA has never been worse than now,” Wolfe said. “Congress must act quickly to restore confidence in the FDA by removing the considerable influence of the drug industry, which currently funds almost two-thirds of the FDA’s budget for drug approval.”

Wolfe testified before the House Agriculture-FDA Appropriations Subcommittee’s hearing on FDA drug safety.

Since 2002, the FDA’s budget for foreign inspections of drug facilities has decreased 25 percent. This comes at the same time as the number of foreign plants manufacturing drugs for import into the U.S. has rapidly increased, Wolfe said.

While Chinese laboratories account for 22 percent of the foreign facilities that import into the U.S., they were subject to only 4 percent of the FDA inspections last year, Wolfe said.

Grocers complain

Supermarkets and food producers, meanwhile, are calling for stricter regulation of food safety. Grocery Manufacturers Association Vice President Robert Brackett chided both the Bush administration and Congress for not giving the Food and Drug Administration more funding to inspect food at company plants.”Because FDA food-related funding has not kept pace with inflation, more than 800 scientists, inspectors and other critical staff have been lost in the past four years,” said Brackett, a former food safety director at FDA.

Brackett also urged Congress to give FDA the authority to order a company to recall tainted food if the company doesn’t volunteer. Currently the agency must work with producers to organize voluntary recalls.

“Waiting on the company to make the decision is like the fox guarding the hen house,” said Rep. Diana DeGette, (D-Colo.). “My constituents are shocked to learn that these agencies do not have this authority.”

The committee chair, Rep. John Dingell (D-Mich.) said it was “clear our regulatory system is broken.”

The “time has passed for half measures,” Dingell said.

The food industry has been plagued by a series of recalls over the past two years, from tainted spinach and peanut butter to E. coli-contaminated beef and botulism in canned foods.

Seafood safety

Also testifying before the committee was John Williams, a shrimp fisherman and executive director of the Southern Shrimp Alliance. He criticized the FDA’s reliance on importers to verify food safety.

“The FDA has failed to enforce food safety laws on imported seafood. The FDA’s approach to imported food safety is to accept unverified representations from importers with only token inspections,” said Williams.

Concerns about the FDA’s inability to assure the safety of imported seafood have caused at least eight states to conduct their own testing programs. Repeatedly, these states have found banned substances in the imports they test-seafood allowed by the FDA and the private sector to enter the U.S. market.

Since 2002, the state of Louisiana has had an Emergency Rule in place to test imported shrimp and crawfish for chloramphenicol. It added testing for fluoroquinolones in Chinese and Vietnamese seafood in 2007.

The FDA’s failure to prevent the importation of contaminated shrimp has a number of negative effects on the U.S. market, the U.S. shrimp industry and U.S. consumers that benefit from a diet of healthful seafood, Williams said:

• Farmed-shrimp imports contaminated with banned antibiotics, pesticides and other dangerous contaminants put the health of U.S. consumers at serious risk.

• U.S. consumers are quite often unable to distinguish between safe and unsafe shrimp in retail markets and restaurants. Their fear of buying or being served contaminated imported shrimp depresses the overall consumption and demand for all shrimp, including healthful, wild-caught shrimp produced in the United States.

• Finally, the FDA’s lax inspection system allows volumes of low-value contaminated shrimp into the U.S. market. These illegal shipments depress the price for U.S. shrimp fishermen, he concluded.

By Martin H. Bosworth
ConsumerAffairs.Com

February 28, 2008

Two years after the theft of a laptop containing data on 26.5 million veterans from the home of an analyst for the Veterans’ Administration (VA), Federal agencies are still not fulfilling all of the mandates for protection of personal information, according to a new report from the Government Accountability Office (GAO).

The GAO was commissioned to investigate 24 federal agencies to determine if they had implemented data security recommendations from the Office of Management and Budget (OMB), including encrypting data on mobile devices such as laptop computers, developing policies for notifying individuals affected by data breaches, using multiple means to authenticate an individual’s right to access information, and fulfilling directives on a “checklist” developed by the National Institute for Standards and Technology (NIST) for dealing with theft or loss of equipment containing sensitive data.

Of the 24 agencies, only two — the Treasury Department and the Department of Transportation — met all of OMB’s requirements for protecting data. 22 of the agencies had enacted policies for encrypting information on mobile devices, but only four had implemented use of the NIST data security checklist.

The Associated Press reported that two agencies — the Small Business Administration and the National Science Foundation — had not met any of the requirements. The VA met four of the five recommendations made by OMB, but did not implement usage of the checklist.

The report was commissioned in part by Sen. Norm Coleman (R-MN) after the VA data breach. Coleman and Sen. Susan Collins (R-ME), both members of the Committee on Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs, wrote letters to all 24 agencies asking for timelines as to when they would implement all of OMB’s recommendations for data security.

‘Very troubling’

“The findings released in this report are very troubling – indicating that agency after agency has failed to make securing citizens’ personal information a high priority,” said Coleman.

“The clock is ticking and we need to know when the agencies are going to have the protections in place to stop the numerous data breaches we have seen over the past few years. The bottom line is the federal government has a responsibility to ensure the personal information it collects from its citizens is properly secured and protected.”

“The federal government collects and stores large amounts of personal information that is a tempting target for identity thieves,” said Collins. “Agencies cannot act quickly enough to implement policies to help protect and secure this sensitive data.”

The VA data breach was not the first time a government agency had lost sensitive personal data, but the size and scope of the breach made it a touchpoint for demands that the government do more to secure citizens’ personal data against theft or loss.

The VA laptop theft was covered up for several weeks before details were made public, and the agency had covered up two smaller breaches in the year preceding the theft. The laptop itself was recovered several months later, and authorities claimed the data had not been compromised or misused.

In February 2007, the VA notified 1.8 million veterans and military doctors that a hard drive containing their personal and billing information had gone missing from an Alabama hospital a month earlier. To date, the drive has not been recovered.

 By Joseph S. Enoch
ConsumerAffairs.Com

February 28, 2008

More children have been killed and injured in cribs and other nursery products during the last few years than in previous years, according to a report released today by the Consumer Product Safety Commission.

The CPSC estimates that 66,400 children were seriously injured in the nursery in 2006, the highest total since 2002 when the agency estimated 67,000. It is a major increase from 2005, when the figure was 59,800.

The average number of deaths from 2002-2004 jumped only one to 81, compared to 80 during the years 2001-2003. However, those are not final figures and the totals are likely to rise because of a lag in reporting infant deaths from coroners and hospitals.

In other words, the 2001-2003 report is mostly complete while the 2002-2004 figures are still preliminary.

Alan Korn, director of public policy at the nonprofit Safe Kids USA, said he is concerned with the numbers.

“Safe Kids is and has always been particularly concerned about the safety of cribs, playpens, bassinets and play yards because these are the only products that we can think of that either by design, by intent, by custom or practice, you leave your children unattended in them for long unsupervised periods of time,” Korn said. “So, if there is any environment on earth, or certainly in the home, that needs to be safe for child, it’s those products.”

Record recalls

The report did not include any statistics for 2007, which saw the record recall of 1,040,000 Simplicity cribs and bassinets, blamed for killing at least four infants.

An investigation by The Chicago Tribune found Simplicity and the CPSC knew for more than two years the faulty hardware and improper installation could leave babies vulnerable to suffocating in the cribs.

“One of the things that concerned us with the Simplicity Crib recall was that there was a crib recall and within a handful of days, there was a bassinet recall,” Korn said.

“That tells me that you could’ve very well had people trying to do the right thing — taking their kids out of cribs, putting them back in bassinets — only to have the bassinet recalled within a handful of days. So parents are struggling finding a safe sleeping environment.”

Korn does not blame the CPSC but said the agency could do more.

“We believe that there should be extra special focus policing the marketplace for cribs, playpens, bassinets and play yards,” he said.

Parents to blame?

The Juvenile Product Manufacturers Association (JPMA), the nursery manufacturers’ lobbying arm, places blame with parents in a statement released today.

“It is important to note that while nursery products were involved in these incidents, the incidents were not necessarily caused by the failure of the product,” according to the statement. “In many cases, injury or death were caused when the child was left unattended or caregivers misused the product or did not follow the manufacturer instructions or safety guidelines.

“JPMA believes that instead of alarming parents, we should work together to educate them about the importance of the proper use and installation of juvenile products,” the statement continued.

But Korn disagrees and says manufacturers could do much more to save infant lives.

“What’s wrong with companies implementing what’s called passive prevention? That means designing your products in a fashion in which they are durable and can stay safe over time and also don’t have unintended design hazards in them,” Korn said.

“In today’s day and age, we’re supposed to have safer products on the marketplace, parents are supposed to be as educated as they’ve ever been and companies are certainly more aware now than they’ve ever been about CPSC regulations, voluntary regulations and design products,” Korn said. “I’m disappointed that the numbers aren’t going down.”

What to do

According to a CPSC press release, the agency recommends:

• To reduce the risk of SIDS and suffocation, place baby to sleep on his or her back in a crib that meets current safety standards

• To prevent suffocation never use a pillow as a mattress for baby to sleep on or to prop baby’s head or neck

• Infants can strangle if their bodies pass through gaps generated between loose components, broken slats and other parts of the crib and their head and neck become entrapped in the space. Do not use old, broken or modified cribs and be sure to regularly tighten hardware to keep sides firm.

• Infants can suffocate in spaces generated between the sides of the crib and an ill fitted mattress; never allow a gap larger than two fingers at any point between the sides of the crib and the mattress

• Never place a crib near a window with blind or curtain cords; infants can strangle on curtain or blind cords.

• Properly set up play yards according to manufacturers’ directions. Only use the mattress provided with the play yard. Do not add extra mattresses, pillows or cushions to the play yard, which can cause a suffocation hazard for infants.

• Routinely check nursery products against CPSC recall lists and remove recalled products from your home

• Sign-up for automatic e-mail recall notifications at www.cpsc.gov

Korn also suggested parents bring their own playpens for their children to sleep in at hotels.

“We’ve found that 25 percent of (hotel cribs) are recalled and the vast majority of them had some safety concern with them,” he said.

 By Joe Benton
ConsumerAffairs.Com

February 28, 2008

After years of disastrous fires involving Ford vehicles, the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration (NHTSA) is strongly warning Ford, Lincoln and Mercury owners of fire hazards involving the faulty cruise control switches in recalled Ford Motor Company vehicles that have not been repaired.

ConsumerAffairs.com has been reporting on the problem for years, chronicling fires in vehicles parked outside homes, in garages and even at fire stations.

In a highly usual statement, NHTSA urged owners of the recalled vehicles to go to a Ford or Lincoln Mercury dealer as soon as possible and have the cruise control system disconnected.

The unrepaired Ford, Lincoln and Mercury SUVs, pickup trucks, vans and certain passenger cars contain a safety defect that could cause the vehicle to erupt into flames, according to the NHTSA statement.

“Failure to have the switch disconnected could lead to a vehicle fire at any time, whether or not the key is in the ignition, and whether or not owners use the cruise control system,” NHTSA warned in the consumer advisory.

The safety agency said the fire danger is present regardless of the age of the vehicle, and could even occur while the vehicle is parked and unattended. Several dwelling fires have been attributed to the problem.

Many dealers will perform a short-term fix as a “drive-through” service so owners do not have to leave their vehicles at the dealership or schedule an appointment in advance, according to NHTSA.

NHTSA said it is issuing the unusual consumer advisory because of concerns that many owners have yet to respond to multiple safety defect recall notifications involving almost 10 million registered vehicles.

NHTSA reported that approximately five million vehicles have been repaired so far, leaving some five million passenger cars and light trucks with the faulty switches intact, and in danger of catching fire at any time without warning.

The drive-through repair is an interim safety measure but will eliminate the risk of fire while affected Ford and Mercury owners are waiting for final repairs from the company, NHTSA said.

Ford is in the process of re-notifying owners of the SUVs and other light trucks concerning the importance of having the switch disconnected.

The involved vehicles are:

1. 1993 – 2004 F150
2. 1993 – 1999 F250 (gasoline engine)
3. 1993 – 1996 Bronco
4. 1994 – 1996 Econoline
5. 1997 – 2002 Ford Expedition
6. 1998 – 2002 Lincoln Navigator
7. 1998 – 2002 Ford Ranger
8. 1992 – 1998 Ford Crown Victoria, Mercury Grand Marquis and Lincoln Town Car
9. 1993 – 1998 Lincoln Mark VIII
10. 1993 – 1995 Ford Taurus SHO with automatic transmission
11. 1994 – Mercury Capri
12. 1998 – 2001 Ford Explorer and Mercury Mountaineer
13. 2001 – 2002 Ford Explorer Sport and Explorer Sport Trac
14. 1992 – 1993 and 1997 – 2003 Ford E-150-350 gasoline or natural gas vehicles
15. 2002 – E-550 gasoline engine vehicles
16. 1996 – 2003 E-450 gasoline or natural gas vehicles
17. 1994 – 2002 F-250 through F-550 super Duty trucks (gasoline engine)
18. 2000 – 2002 Ford Excursion (gasoline engine)
19. 2003 – F250 – F550 Super Duty, Ford Excursion
20. 1995 – 2002 Ford F53 Motor home chassis
21. 2002 – 2003 Lincoln Blackwood

Latest fires

The firestorm of Ford trucks erupting into flames most recently struck in two more states, devastating Ford truck owners in Minnesota and California.

The Ford inferno hit a homeowner in Chisago City, Minnesota last month when her 2000 Ford Expedition “started on fire parked in our attached garage. We have now lost everything we owned,” wrote the Ford Expedition owner. “The home we built not even 2 years ago burned to the ground,” she said.

Aftermath of the Chisago City, Minn., fire

Neighbors of the burned-out Chisago City homeowners are helping their friends. “Rob and Gina’s house burned,” wrote a friend. “Fortunately, they got out of the house with their 2 daughters.”

“The fire is being investigated, but it started in Gina’s truck. Rob opened up the mudroom door and the entire car was engulfed in flames,” he said. “Everything, including both their cars were torched.”

“This will be a hard time for the children and for Rob and Gina. I am hoping we can get together and help their kids,” the neighbor wrote to friends.

California fire

While the Minnesota fire is still under investigation, a second Ford truck went up in flames in Westminster, California on January 22. This home owner is fortunate. He lost only his Ford truck and not his house as well.

The California Ford owner had parked his truck in the driveway following a brief 20-minute drive.

“Approximately one hour later, about 3:30 in the afternoon, the engine compartment was on fire and became engulfed within minutes,” he said.

“A neighbor’s daughter saw the fire and her dad and a friend came to our house and helped put out the fire with a garden hose before it could catch fire to the front of our house,” according to the ConsumerAffairs.com reader.

The fire department told the Ford truck owner that “the origin of the fire was on the driver’s side of the vehicle near and around the master cylinder.”

That would place the origin of the truck fire in the area of the cruise control system which the Ford Motor Co. is struggling to recall.

Ford admits a parts shortage is preventing the automaker from repairing all of the recalled Ford cars and trucks recalled for a faulty cruise control system until sometime later in 2008. The automaker has no specific time table for completion of the recall.

As a short-term solution, Ford offers to disconnect the cruise control system in recalled vehicles until parts are available to complete the repair.

1.8 million at risk

More than 1.8 million Ford cars and trucks remain at risk 5 months after the automaker recalled an additional 3.6 million vehicles because of the fire hazard in the cruise control system.

A Ford spokesman insists the automaker is doing all it can to complete the fire hazard recall.

“This was a large recall, and we’re working with the supplier to meet the volume challenge as soon aspossible,” said Ford’s Dan Jarvis.

A Mississippi consumer has had it with Ford because of the confusion surrounding the recall.

“My mother’s 1988 Grand Marquis caught fire and was damaged and repaired with recall notice coming month later,” he said. “She now drives my 1997 Lincoln Town Car and there was a safety recall in July with parts due in November. Now we are told February,” he said.

Ford would not offer an explanation for the recall delay to their Sumrall, Mississippi customer so he got rid of the Lincoln and bought his mother a Lexus.

The recall delay adds to an already troubling situation for many Ford consumers faced with the cruise control recall. The consequences are sometimes devastating.

Faced with continuing delays, some Ford customers are reluctant to go along with the automaker’s interim solution to deactivate the cruise control system.

Some Ford dealers now require customers who decline to disconnect the cruise control system to sign a waiver of liability.

With just more than half of the fire-prone Fords repaired, the automaker insists the company is responding adequately in an effort to notify Ford customers to return their vehicles to a Ford dealership for repair of the fire hazard.

“We have sent multiple mailings to customers, based on current vehicle registrations, asking them to bring in vehicles. I don’t have an exact figure, but about half of the total have done so to date. We have one of the highest return rates in the industry, based on update registration info, and sending multiple mailings,” Ford spokesman Jarvis said in an email response to ConsumerAffairs.Com.

Ford, however, continues to deny any responsibility for fires caused by its trucks. It tells burned-out customers to talk to their insurance agents.

More Ford Fire Stories

Photos furnished by ConsumerAffairs.com readers

By Mark Huffman

February 7, 2008

When the Bush Administration unveiled its proposed budget this week, consumer groups hoping to see a major boost in funding for federal food inspection programs were disappointed.The spending blueprint would bump the FDA’s food safety budget up 6.8 percent to $662 million.

Consumer groups don’t think that’s nearly enough, and neither, apparently, does the food industry.

“The President’s proposal to increase FDA food-related spending by $32 million does little more than cover the cost of inflation and falls short of what is ultimately needed to make certain FDA has the tools it needs to get the job done,” said Cal Dooley, President and CEO of the Grocery Manufacturers Association.

Dooley says the food industry has made a number of its own investments in food safety to try to meet the challenges of today’s evolving global market. Now, he says, the government has to do its part.

The FDA, which has responsibility for inspecting $1.5 trillion of goods, has been under intense pressure for an increasing number of food safety recalls, that culminated last year in high profile recalls of products ranging salmonella-tainted U.S.-made peanut butter to contaminated pet-food ingredients from China.

In December Dooley and other industry representatives joined with a coalition of consumer groups to call for massive spending increases on the FDA’s food safety programs, something the agencies own science board says is needed.

House Democrats say they will act on the Science Board’s recommendations and give the agency more money than it has asked for.

Oversight and Government Reform Committee Chairman Henry Waxman, (D-CA and Energy and Commerce Committee Chairman John Dingell (D-MI) have written to the FDA’s science advisory board subcommittee on science and technology and asked for a budget figure more in line with needs.

“We are deeply concerned that the budget submitted by the president is grossly inadequate to meet the many challenges at FDA as identified by the Science Board,” they wrote. “It barely covers the cost of inflation and continues the trend of the inadequate budgets of previous years that have led to the current crisis at the agency.”

February 21, 2008

Consumer groups are pointing to the settlement of a class-action suit against Sears to support their argument that the U.S. Consumer Product Safety Commission (CPSC) moves too slowly to effectively protect consumers from injury.

Sears agreed to fix as many as 3.9 million ranges by bolting them to a floor or wall, to prevent them from tipping over. The settlement covers every range Sears has sold since 2000 and could cost the retailer as much as $526 million.

It’s estimated that 15 to 20 million kitchens in the United States are equipped with a range that can tip over and crush, scald or burn whoever is standing in front of it. The problem is caused by the use of lightweight material in modern stoves, which makes them top-heavy and thus prone to tip over when the oven door is open.

None of this is new. Public Citizen, U.S. PIRG and the Consumer Federation of America have been warning for years that the tip-over hazard exists in most brands of electric and gas ranges used in households throughout the country.

20 years

According to documents obtained last year from the Consumer Product Safety Commission (CPSC), manufacturers and the government have known about this danger for more than 20 years.

Since the early 1980s, manufacturers of ranges began using lighter-gauge steel to reduce costs, even though they quickly learned that this resulted in a tendency for the lighter-weight appliances to tip over when weight was applied to the oven door.

After receiving numerous reports of severe accidents caused by tipping stoves, industry-standard organizations Underwriters Laboratories (UL) and the American National Standards Institute (ANSI) both developed national, voluntary safety standards that require electric and gas ranges manufactured after 1991 to remain stable when 250 pounds of pressure is applied on the oven door for five minutes.

The standards also require sellers to install the anti-tip brackets that manufacturers agreed to supply, but the retailers rarely install the brackets.

While the retailers are all aware of the safety hazard, the delivery people they contract with often are not equipped or trained to perform the installation service, and the sales people rarely mention the issue to the buyer. As a result, most homeowners who purchase the ranges do not know that the units are not secure and are unaware that the brackets are necessary for stability.

Sears suit

The Sears suit settlement, recently approved by an Illinois judge, requires Sears to install safety brackets in the ranges it sells over the next three years, and to fix existing ranges by bolting them to the kitchen wall.

Details of the settlement are available at

CPSC’s role

While it’s true that CPSC has not ordered a recall to fix the hazard, the agency’s spokesman said that CPSC has mentioned the problem several times in consumer advisories. Scott Wolfson said the agency was also concerned about furniture and other objects tipping over.

There have been several recalls of entertainment consoles in recent years.

Public Citizen President Joan Claybrook said the CPSC’s inaction illustrates the weakness of the legislation under which the agency operates. The House and Senate are considering bills that would strengthen the agency but acting head Nancy Nord opposes the Senate version, which provides for harsher penalties and more openness than the House version.

Children, Elderly at Risk

“There have been more than 100 reported cases of death and injury from scalding and burns due to hot foods and liquids spilling from the stove top, and from the weight crushing anyone in the path of the tipping ranges,” Claybrook said. “Considering the lack of consistent reporting and the millions of homes with these ovens, we believe the numbers of those maimed or killed by ranges tipping over are much greater.”

This design flaw has particularly affected children and the elderly.

CPSC accident reports include cases of a 24-pound toddler who stood on an open oven door, tipping the range so that boiling chicken soup spilled over him, causing severe burns; a 3-year old who climbed onto the range door and was killed when the stove fell over on him; and an 88-year old woman who slipped as she was cleaning her range and grabbed the oven door for support — which caused the oven to flip over and crush her in her own kitchen with her upper body wedged into the hot oven in which she had just finished baking cookies.

When Did CPSC Know?

Sears, one of the largest retailers of gas and electric ranges, admitted in an internal memo in 1996 that the brackets were installed for only an estimated 5 percent of ranges sold — and possibly as low as 2-3 percent.

In a 1999 letter to Sears, Underwriters Laboratories informed the retailer that it expected the ranges with the UL Listing Mark to be installed with the anti-tip safety brackets supplied by the manufacturers. Sears gave a misleading response to UL in 2000 that implied the company was in full compliance with the UL standard.

“When companies fail to take simple steps to save lives, and the CPSC fails to act on a well-known and preventable problem that leads to horrible burns and deaths, something’s very wrong,” said U.S. PIRG Consumer Program Director Ed Mierzwinski. “It’s time to fix the stove tip-over problem that’s been ignored for too long.”

The CPSC was aware of the oven-tipping problem since at least 1984, and received reports detailing numerous deaths and serious injuries, mostly involving children –some as young as 12 months old — and the elderly. It never took any steps to require notification to owners, the installation of the brackets or the redesign of the ranges in the future.

Consumer representatives objected to the CPSC consistently failing in its mission to protect American consumers.

“Retailers should notify consumers of this safety hazard immediately and take steps to comply with the voluntary standards, including retrofitting all freestanding stoves with the necessary safety bracket and installing new stoves properly,” said Rachel Weintraub, director of product safety and senior counsel for Consumer Federation of America.

Action Needed

To avoid any more preventable injuries, the consumer groups have called on the sellers of ranges to notify all owners of the danger of tipping stoves and the need for safety brackets, and to install the brackets for any existing owners of the stoves.

“American consumers are being killed and terribly injured by companies who are cynically refusing to make their ranges safe and by the agency established to protect them,” said Claybrook. “Action to fix this preventable hazard will come far too late for the many people who have been maimed and killed, but we hope it comes in time to save countless others.”

DCInsider.com gives consumers an insider’s look at the government agencies that take their money and supposedly protect and nurture them. It provides how-to tips for consumers trying to solve problems, links to official and unofficial sites where consumers can lodge complaints, reports on agency activities and provides blogs and other forums where insiders, outsiders and interested parties can post their thoughts.

Americans are increasingly frustrated with the poor service provided by both government and business. They are seeking clear, easy-to-use tools that will help them get the information they need to resolve disputes, avoid problems and get revenge. Affiliated site ConsumerAffairs.Com, one of the world’s top 2,000 sites by traffic according to Quantcast, records 1.5 million visits per month by disgruntled consumers and receives nearly 9,000 consumer complaints each month.

DCInsider.com will be a lively, well-organized site that makes it easy for consumers to find the agency that is supposed to handle their problem. It will assist them in finding avenues for complaints and dispute resolution, as well as providing forums, blogs and other avenues for them to vent. It will also provide the same kind of spirited, kick-ass news coverage that has set ConsumerAffairs.com apart from its competition.

The site will offer a steadily increasing number of specialized newsletters, RSS feeds and blogs dealing with each major subject area.