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Fast-Track Recall Program Wins Award

Innovations in American Government Award: Fast-Track Recall Program

FEBRUARY 14, 2013

The U.S. Consumer Product Safety Commission (CPSC) Fast-Track Consumer Product Recall Program was named a 1998 winner of the prestigious Innovations in American Government award, an awards program of the Ford Foundation and Harvard University, administered by Harvard University's John F. Kennedy School of Government in partnership with the Council for Excellence in Government. Each year, the Innovations National Selection Committee bestows the award on ten programs that have taken a fresh approach to a problem in government.

Recalling dangerous products from the marketplace is one of the most important responsibilities of the CPSC. And CPSC's efforts to improve this process -- with its fast-track consumer product recall program -- were recently recognized nationally.

No company likes to recall one of its products. But when a safety problem makes a product recall necessary to prevent injuries and save lives, it is to everyone's benefit to move quickly.

The CPSC fast-track product recall program speeds up the recall process and gets more dangerous products out of people's homes. This saves industry and government both time and money, and reduces the potential for injuries and deaths to the public.

Since CPSC instituted a pilot fast-track program in August 1995, more than 315 recalls involving about 50 million potentially defective products have been conducted. About half of CPSC's recalls are done under this streamlined system.

Please note that the description of the CPSC fast-track product recall program is in CPSC's publication, the Consumer Product Safety Review, and is in portable document format (pdf) that requires Adobe AcrobatTM reader to view it.

There is also a more detailed description of the program for manufacturers and retailers, also in pdf

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