The head of the Consumer Product Safety Commission conceded that the agency “hasn’t been acting as quickly as it should” on crib safety problems.
More than 2.1 million drop-side cribs by Stork Craft Manufacturing of Canada are being recalled following reports of four infant suffocations. The CPSC said the recall involves 1.2 million cribs in the United States and almost 1 million in Canada, where Stork Craft is based. Sales of the cribs being recalled go back to 1993 and nearly 150,000 of the cribs carry the Fisher-Price logo.
The agency said the drop-side cribs have a side that moves up and down to allow parents to lift children from the cribs more easily. It also said there have been 110 incidents of drop-sides detaching from the cribs.
Asked whether people should abandon such cribs, Tenenbaum said she recommends that. And she said consumers also could order plastic kits from the manufacturer to immobilize crib sides.
The Stork Craft cribs have had problems with their hardware, which can break, deform or become missing after years. CPSC said there can also be problems with assembly mistakes by the crib owner. These problems can cause the drop-side to detach, creating a dangerous space between the drop-side and the crib mattress, where a child can become trapped.
The cribs, which were manufactured and distributed between January 1993 and October 2009, were sold at major retailers including BJ’s Wholesale Club, Sears and Wal-Mart stores and online through Target and Costco. They sold for between $100 and $400, and were made in Canada, China and Indonesia.
This is the second big recall this year for the company. It recalled about 500,000 cribs in January because of problems with the metal brackets that support the mattress. Some of the same models in the earlier recall were also part of Monday’s announcement, CPSC said.
Consumer advocates have complained for years about drop-side cribs. More than 5 million of them have been recalled over the past two years alone — recalls that were associated with the deaths of a dozen young children.
ASTM International, an organization that sets voluntary industry safety standards for everything from toys to the steel used in commercial buildings, approved a new standard last week that requires four immovable, or fixed, sides for full-size cribs — essentially eliminating the manufacture of drop-side cribs.
In the Stork Craft recall, the manufacture date, model number, crib name, country of origin, and the firm’s name, address and contact information are located on the assembly instruction sheet attached to the mattress support board. The firm’s insignia “storkcraft baby” or “storkling” is inscribed on the drop-side teething rail of some cribs.
If you or a family member has been personally injured because of the fault of someone else: by the use of dangerous and defective drugs, bad products, or toxic injury etc then please contact the Dallas Texas Defective Drugs Product Liability Attorney Dr. Shezad Malik. For a no obligation, free case analysis, please call 817-255-4001 or Contact Me Online.