Four nominees receive awards for their significant contributions to consumer product safety.
The Chairman's Commendation Award was created by CPSC Chairman Inez Tenenbaum in 2011 to identify and honor people, organizations, businesses, state and local governments and other groups who have worked to reduce deaths, prevent injuries and improve consumer product safety.
"These individuals deserve to be recognized for their hard work to advance consumer product safety. They have saved countless numbers of lives through their advocacy, working to educate parents and industry, making toys safer with better labeling and safe cribs available to families who couldn't afford one," said Chairman Tenenbaum.
This year's recipients of the Chairman's Commendation Award are:
- Judith Bannon, Cribs for Kids® - Judith Bannon is the Executive Director of Cribs for Kids®, a national infant safe sleep initiative that she started in 1998. Cribs for Kids®, is a national network of partners that has provided more than 130,000 free, safe cribs to high-risk, low-income families who cannot afford one, and educates caregivers about the dangers of unsafe sleep environments.
- Dr. Ik-Whan Kwon, St. Louis University's Center for Supply Chain Management Studies - In 2009, the Center for Supply Chain Management Studies became the first to offer university-level product safety courses for product safety professionals within industry. Dr. Ik-Whan Kwon, the director of the Center for Supply Chain Management Studies, has led the program since its start and has earned the title of product safety 'patron' at the school. This year, U.S. News and World Report recognized the Center for the quality of its programs in the supply chain field.
- Stephen Teret, JD, MPH, the Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health - Stephen Teret is a professor in the Department of Health Policy and Management at the Bloomberg School and is a pioneer in the field of public health law. He is a widely- acclaimed national leader in product safety, injury and violence prevention and food policy. Teret founded the school's Center for Law and the Public's Health and has served as its director since 2000. His advocacy work led to more effective warning labels on toys with choking hazards. He has written numerous articles and books on injury prevention and consumer product safety.
- Rachel Weintraub, Consumer Federation of America - Rachel Weintraub is the Director of Product Safety and Senior Counsel for the Consumer Federation of America. She led a coalition of consumer, public health and public interest groups that worked with Congress on consumer product safety reform. This resulted in a new law, the Consumer Product Safety Improvement Act of 2008, that requires strong mandatory standards for many infant nursery products, including cribs, lower levels of lead and phthalates in toys and requires independent third party testing of children's products.
The U.S. Consumer Product Safety Commission is charged with protecting the public from unreasonable risks of injury or death associated with the use of the thousands of consumer products under the agency's jurisdiction. Deaths, injuries and property damage from consumer product incidents cost the nation more than $900 billion annually. CPSC is committed to protecting consumers and families from products that pose a fire, electrical, chemical or mechanical hazard. CPSC's work to ensure the safety of consumer products - such as toys, cribs, power tools, cigarette lighters and household chemicals - contributed to a decline in the rate of deaths and injuries associated with consumer products over the past 30 years.
Federal law bars any person from selling products subject to a publicly-announced voluntary recall by a manufacturer or a mandatory recall ordered by the Commission.
To report a dangerous product or a product-related injury go online to www.SaferProducts.gov or call CPSC's Hotline at (800) 638-2772 or teletypewriter at (301) 595-7054 for the hearing impaired. Consumers can obtain news release and recall information at www.cpsc.gov, on Twitter @OnSafety or by subscribing to CPSC's free e-mail newsletters.