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CPSC Backs Increased Safety Rules For Extension Cords

Release Date: January 19, 1978

The US Consumer Product Safety Commission (CPSC) today lent strong support to voluntary safety requirements for extension cords like those of Underwriters' Laboratories (UL), Chicago, to reduce mouth burns and electric shock injuries.

In denying a petition from the National Electrical Manufacturers Association (NEMA), New York, to develop a Federal mandatory safety standard for extension cords, the Commission noted that voluntary standards at least as stringent as UL's should cut down on shock and mouth-burn accidents.

UL is an independent testing facility which sets safety standards on a variety of products.

In 1975 and 1976, CPSC learned of some 3,000 injuries from extension cords. Of these, 28 percent were mouth burns mostly to children younger than age 10. Almost 400 of the mouth burns were to children under two years who bit or sucked the cord. Hospital emergency room care, long-term treatment or plastic surgery was often needed.

Some current UL standards already address mouth burn and shock hazards from extension cords. Newly proposed UL rules would further reduce these injuries by adding heavier insulation on cords and requiring labels on the cords themselves asking buyers to keep the product out of children's reach, to unplug the cord when not in use, not to overload, and to use only maximum wattage a cord can safely handle.

About 500 million extension cords are sold annually in the United States, CPSC estimates.

CPSC will monitor progress in the voluntary standards area.

To see if head, neck and spine injuries in football can be linked to helmet inadequacies, CPSC will begin study of the sport next fall. About 1.5 million people play organized football each year, the Commission said. Instead of taking immediate action on a petition for a mandatory standard for helmets, the Commission hopes to determine if helmets cause certain injuries.

The Commission denied part of the same petition which called for a safety standard for football shoes. CPSC lacks statistics which show football shoes present an unreasonable risk of injury.

Release Number
78-004

About the U.S. CPSC
The U.S. Consumer Product Safety Commission (CPSC) is charged with protecting the public from unreasonable risk of injury or death associated with the use of thousands of types of consumer products. Deaths, injuries, and property damage from consumer product-related incidents cost the nation more than $1 trillion annually. CPSC's work to ensure the safety of consumer products has contributed to a decline in the rate of injuries associated with consumer products over the past 50 years. 

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