Top 5 Toy Hazards and Shopping Safety Tips

Video Clip Transcript - Top 5 Toy Hazards and Shopping Safety Tips, November 12, 2008

Associated with Press Release #09-040

Transcript

Good morning.

Thank you all for coming today. I'm Nancy Nord, the acting Chairman of the US Consumer Product Safety Commission. And I'm so pleased that Dan Baldwin from the Customs and Board of Protection is with us this morning, as is Mitch Stoller, the Chief Executive Officer of Safe Kids USA, two of our very, very important partners in assuring safety of consumer products.

Since last year, there has been a lot of activity by the CPSC, by Customs and Board of Protection and also by industry with one goal in mind and that is to keep the toys that our children play with the safest in the world. The violations that we saw last year and that we acted on were unacceptable and so over the past year the agency has added to and improved the tools that we used to regulate toys and to remove hazardous toys from store shelves and American homes. And we're now seeing the results of that activity.

If you look behind me these are not just pretty packages, but they represent the activity that we began at the ports just seven months ago. There are 664 packages back here representing the 664 shipments of toys that were stopped and inspected over the past seven months at our ports. And of these, 238 shipments were seized and denied entry into the United States for safety violations.

You should also be aware that the overwhelming majority of the violations we found were for violations of our small parts or choking regulations. The CPSC is vigorously inspecting toys here in the United States and enforcing laws that are in placed to protect children. Industry is testing products that are on store shelves with more scrutiny than ever before, so that the toys that are now on sale in malls just like this all over the United States have gone through the most intensive safety and inspection process to date. The action and the tools being used by the CPSC means that we are looking harder for violations and we're finding less violations. That's the good news. It is a real testament to the enforcement authority of our agency and of our partners that we are making store shelves and in turn American homes safer.

While the CPSC is working very hard to make sure that products in the US are the safest in the world, consumers can help in making their home safe by being aware of what possess the greatest risk to our kids and then taking steps to protect them. So, when you go out holiday shopping you need to have 2 lists. First of all, your child's wish list, but second the CPSC toys safety checklist.

As we enter the holiday season, kids around the country will be making their list for toys that they just have to have, but because children often want things that are not perhaps the best choices for them in terms of safety, parents need to make smart shopping choices. And that's why it is so important for everyone buying toys to buy the right toy for the right child. Parents need to be label readers. We need to make sure that the gifts we are choosing are the right age, skill and interest level for the child.

So, as you go out holiday shopping, what are some of the watch-outs that you should be aware of. Well, we put together a list of the five top toy hazards and I'd like to run through them for you now. Number One, Scooters and other riding toys, riding toys, skateboards, inline skates. They go fast and falls can be deadly. So, helmets and safety gear should be part of the gift and should be sized to fit your child properly. Small balls and other toys with small parts. If your child is younger than 3, read the label and make sure that it is -- does not contain small parts. These are choking hazards and they can be deadly for small children who put things in their mouths. Number Three are balloons. Children under 8 years old can choke and suffocate on un-inflated or broken balloons. Keep un-inflated balloons away from children and discard broken balloons. Number Four is magnets. More and more building sets are being made with small very powerful magnets. And if you have a child that's under 6 years old, avoid building sets with these small magnets. They can come lose and if a child swallow several magnets it can be deadly. And finally, chargers and adapters. Battery powered, hand held games and flying toys, they all need a lot of power to keep them going so they come with chargers and adapters. Charging battery should be always supervised by adults. Chargers and adapters can pose thermal burns to children. So those are our five watch-outs for parents as you go holiday shopping this year. But many of us this year are looking through ways to make our holiday shopping dollars go a little bit further and so we are tempted to turn to secondhand retailers, secondhand market online auction retailers.

In stretching today's dollar we do not want you to sacrifice safety. Anyone selling products online needs to be aware of what they are selling and anyone buying products online needs to be aware of what they are buying. It just makes good sense to research products before you sell and before you buy to make sure that they have not been recalled by the CPSC. That safety information is just a click away. All product retailers or all product recalls I should say are listed on the CPSC website. Let me say that again, we have all our product recalls on the CPSC website. Consumers can get a CPSC recall information delivered directly to their e-mail inboxes by coming our website and signing up for that free service.

Now, every year the agency talks about safe shopping right around the holiday season, but safety is not seasonal for the CPSC. 365days a year we will enforce the laws on the books, educate consumers as to where risks exist and adapt to the changing marketplace. So my message to consumers this year is to shop smart, but shop with safety in mind. So thank you very much and now I would like to ask Dan Baldwin to come to the podium. Dan is here representing the Customs and Border Protection Service. CBP is one of our partners in safety. It is through their offices that we are able to continue our vigilance at the ports, so they are valuable team player with us and I'm delighted here hear Dan.

Thank you.

Thank you very much Nancy, and thank you everyone for coming in today.

As the Chairman just noted that, you know product safety issues have garnered a considerable amount of interest over the past few years in particular. And I think it's probably very safe to say that imports of some of these products have garnered the highest level of interest.

We've talked about toys, we've talked about unsafe food products, we've talked about many different imports that are presented safety dangers to the American consumer and US Customs and Border Protection is very proud to work with agencies, such as the CPSC in helping to combat those issues particularly when they threaten the lives of the American public. As you also are probably aware, the administration found this issue to be of such importance that in July of 2007 we've established an interagency working group on import safety to leverage many of the experts around the government to address this problem. Again Customs and Border Protections have been part of that and if you have an -- had an opportunity to look at the president's import safety action plan I would certainly encourage you to go through that plan to see how close the various agencies need to work to address this problem and particularly from the import perspective.

Working with the CPSC has been quite beneficial certainly over the last year at least where we have really stepped-up our efforts to work collectively to assess risks and target certain communities for reviews and examination especially as we've gone to offer co-location at our border locations for CPSC individuals and for CBP officers to address the imports of unsafe products. This is a very important piece for us to begin the uniform procedures on how to address these imports because what we must do is make sure that we keep out unsafe products while facilitating legitimate trade to come through, so that the stores here can stay open with their legitimate products. But we've also been working very closely with the CPSC on various enforcement issues such as targeting interdiction and testing of the products. As a matter of fact we've been working very closely with CPSC to work and leverage our laboratories to address some of the most high risk issues, so that we understand the standards applied by the CPSC. And can apply them with our own laboratories to help leverage a lot of our resources and perhaps even capture many more of these infringing products. But in keeping with this layered approach that we use at CBP do not only interdict the unsafe products. We also need to make sure we facilitate the flow of legitimate products while providing the American public, the American consumer a high degree of confidence in the part on the products they purchased and the parties they purchase them from.

I'm struck by the comment the Chairman made a few moments ago that, you know there is a responsibility not only on the purchaser, but from the seller to actually ensure the public they are selling safe products. I'm always telling my staff, telling my family and I'm sure you've all uses yourself, but if you look on the Internet or if you look in the coupon clippers and you see that there's a story that's just too good to be true, well it probably is too good to be true. There's a reason for that. I think if again if you look through a lot of the product safety issues that are in the press today you'll see it's usually an attempt to reduce cost and increase the profit margin by some nefarious players out there.

There's many ways to combat that issue and I think one of the more important issues that I think at CBP that we've worked on is the importer self assessment product safety program that we're piloting with CPSC that we just announced about two weeks ago. The reason that is so important is because it gives us an opportunity to look at a specific importer and all the goods that they import and it gives us a high degree of confidence that they are very responsible, highly responsible corporations in the United States.

To be a part of that program they need to first ensure that are members of our CTPAT program, Customs and Trade Partnership Against Terrorism, to ensure that they are very active in making sure they have all the proper control systems in placed to ensure the nation is safe from terrorist or terrorist weapons. Then they have to make sure that they're part of our traditional importer self assessment program to ensure that they're abiding by all the customs trade laws and regulations. And now, as it seems to me the natural evolution, we've added another component with CPSC to ensure that they import nothing but the most safe products for our children to buy their toy stores or their food supplies. So, we are happy to announce that pilot program. We've already had one company goes through the rigorous testing, which includes reviews of the corporate records here in the United States and the reviews of the corporate records at their major foreign facilities to ensure that they are -- they have the highest level of confidence from both CBP's perspective and CPSC's perspective on the products that they import.

I'm very, very interested to see how this pilot program works out. I'm very optimistic and confident that we'll -- I'll be able to identify high levels of corporate responsibility that give a greater level of assurance when we buy our children their Christmas presents. Given our role with our inspection of release of cargo, I'm very happy to see the CBP is staying vey active in this. We work very closely with the CPSC I'm very happy to see that we're having a much greater impact on keeping out unsafe products from this country, really amplifying the fact that customs and border protection is an all threat agency and we're here to protect the American public on all fronts. And I think this is a great indication of how this partnership between the two agencies can work most effectively. With that I think I'll turn it back to the Chairman.

Thank you.

Thank you so much Dan.

Now, I'd like to invite to the podium Mitch Stoller who is the Chief Executive Officer of Safe Kids USA. Safe Kids is one of the consumer organizations that we view as a real partner with the CPSC. They have organizations locally around the country and offer a wonderful way to talk directly to consumers about these important issues. So we value our partnership with Safe Kids and Mitch, I'm delighted you're here today.

Good morning everybody.

Thank you Chairman Nord and Commissioner Baldwin. I'm delighted to be here with all of you representing Safe Kids USA. We're child safety organization that reaches communities around the United States to help eliminate preventable, unintentional injuries to children ages 14 and under. As many of you know there are approximately 217,000 toy-related injuries in the United States every year. About 15 children under age 14 die from a toy-related incident annually. Although far more children are killed every year in motor vehicle crashes, the number one killer of children ages 1 to 14, toy-related deaths are particularly sad because they're caused by the very things that are supposed to bring us such joy and happiness especially during this time of the season. But what makes these injuries even more sad and frustrating is that most if not all of them could have been prevented. The children involved could have been protected. I'm pleased to be here to represent Safe Kids USA and our nationwide network of more than 600 coalitions and chapters that promote toys safety messages to parents and caregivers every day and this holiday season is no different.

Consumers expect that before a toy reaches the hands of a child, the designer, manufacturer and retailer have acted responsively with safety first and foremost in mind. From the time the toy is created up until it becomes a favorite play thing the care involved in making sure that every toy is a safe toy is depended upon many organizations which include manufacturers, retailers, the CPSC and congress, child safety advocates and consumers. We all share equally in the responsibility of keeping dangerous toys away from our nation's children. It's easy to see how even one small part of this process is breached our children are placed at risk.

Last year the numerous toy recalls caused fear and unrest for many families, but as you may have heard today great progress is being made by those involved in making distributing and buying toys for children including manufacturers who were tightening their quality assurance procedures to make sure their toys are safe as possible. The CPSC which is continuing its commitment to make sure this year's shopping season is safe for children and with the passage of landmark consumer products safety legislation we know that the CPSC now has the tools, resources and authority to fully address all facet of safety for consumers not just toys. The department of Homeland Security's US Customs and Border Protection which is aggressively policing our borders, turning away unsafe toys and keeping them out of our country and far from the reach of our children, retailers who are exercising more vigilance to keep unsafe toys off the shelves and out of the market place and we knew that the consumers going into this holiday season better-informed about product recalls and how to purchase toys that are age-appropriate. Toward that end, Safe Kids USA will continue to educate parents and caregivers about the safe purchase and use of toys this holiday season while we continue to call upon our partners in this effort to do their parts and be ever vigilant.

Despite the progress being made we cannot throw caution to the wind. If even one child this season is injured by a toy, that's one too many. And I think that all of us here today having the safety of the county's children in our hands this responsibility we proudly and willingly accept.

Safe Kids USA is honored to be included in this effort of manufactures, government organizations retailers and consumers to make this toy buying season as free from preventable, unintentional injuries to children as as humanly possible.

Thank you very much.

Thank you so much Mitch.

And now if there are any questions, we'd be happy to take them. Yes.

The question went to how many people do we have inspecting at the ports?

In the spring the CPSC set up an import surveillance division, which for the first time in the history of the agency now has devoted people at the ports working with Customs and Border Protection day in and day out looking for unsafe products. This is the first time in the agency's history that we have done that. At this point we have 9 ports covered, but hopefully should resources permit we will expand that coverage to include even more ports and even more people at those ports. However, because of our relationship with Customs and Border Protection we are able to leverage the people that we have at those ports. We look to our partners at CBP to work with us, so the synergy that has been created between our two agencies really does expand our reach dramatically.