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Three Black Professionals Join CPSC Advisory Panels

Release Date: July 24, 1974

Janie W. Cotton, who heads the Department of Home Economics at Texas Southern University in Houston, was selected to represent the interests of consumers on the National Advisory Committee for the Flammable Fabrics Act. She will serve on the Committee through December 1975.

Ms. Cotton, 49, holds a Ph.D. in textiles. She supervises University sponsored flammability conferences and advises the University planning group that reviews interior design and construction materials for safety to civic and women's groups.

Mildred Whitted, Ph.D., a Professor of Business at Forest Park Community College in St. Louis, Missouri, also was appointed to represent consumer interests on the flammable fabrics advisory committee through December 1975.

Ms. Whitted, 44, is a member of the Consumer Advisory Council of the Better Business Bureau. She is a former director of a community education program that she helped to establish, "Operation Consumer Insight."

Currently serving on the flammable fabrics advisory committee is another Black woman, Dorothy S. Duke, a housing specialist for the National Council of Negro Women, Inc. Her term is due to expire December 1974.

Maudine Cooper, an attorney, was selected as a consumer representative for the Technical Advisory Committee on Poison Prevention Packaging. Her term ends December 1976.

Ms. Cooper is Assistant Director for Federal Programs for the National Urban League in Washington, D.C.

Two other Blacks now serve on the Commission's third advisory committee, the Product Safety Advisory Council.

Beulah Sanders, Chairperson of the National Welfare Rights Organization in New York City, is a consumer representative and will serve through December 1975.

Peter Pryor, an attorney and Chairman and Executive Director of the New York State Consumer Protection Board, is a government representative whose term ends June 1975. Pryor is the New York state liaison with the Commission.

The Commission's three advisory committees normally meet several times a year to advise the Commission on policy and on the promulgation of mandatory safety standards. Members are selected to represent the interests of consumers or industry in order to reflect a balance of views on each of the committees. Recently, the Commission increased the number of consumer representatives on both the National Advisory Committee for the Flammable Fabrics Act and the Poison Prevention Packaging Technical Advisory Committee.

The Commission also seeks to achieve racial, regional, age and professional diversity among committee members.

Release Number
74-055

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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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