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From the LA Times.
1 million cribs being recalled after deaths
The Simplicity and Graco models -- made in China -- feature faulty parts that can lead to infant suffocation.
By Andrea Chang
Los Angeles Times Staff Writer
September 22, 2007
The maker of Simplicity and Graco cribs on Friday recalled about 1 million of the beds after the deaths of at least two infants, including one in California.
"Don't take a chance at all," said Scott Wolfson, a spokesman for the federal Consumer Product Safety Commission, which announced the voluntary recall by Reading, Pa.-based Simplicity Inc., one of the nation's largest crib manufacturers.
"If you are a parent or caregiver that has one of these cribs impacted by these recalls, your baby should not sleep in that crib tonight."
The recalled cribs, which were manufactured in China and sold at major retailers nationwide, feature a "drop-side" railing that can pull away from the mattress. Infants can become trapped in the resulting gap and suffocate.
The recall is the latest in a summer of worry for parents, who have seen name-brand toys, bibs and other childhood necessities removed from retail shelves because of safety concerns.
It's also yet another smudge on the reputation of Chinese-made goods.
The drop-side failures result from the hardware and crib design, which make it possible to install the drop-side incorrectly, the commission said. Installing the drop-side railing upside down greatly increases the risk of failure, although the commission said it was aware of two incidents that occurred when the drop-side was correctly installed.
The commission announced the recall after inquiries by the Chicago Tribune as part of a crib-safety investigation.
A 9-month-old and a 6-month-old died in cases where the drop-side railing was installed upside down, the commission said. The older infant was Liam Johns, who died in Citrus Heights, Calif., in April 2005, according to the boy's father, Chad Johns.
"The fact that the recall finally came through has lifted a lot of weight from our shoulders and given us closure," said Johns, who now lives in Roseville, Calif., with his wife, Nicola. "We wanted to make sure no other families suffer through the same situation that we did."
The family's attorney, Charles Kelly of San Francisco-based law firm Hersh & Hersh, said he alerted the commission about the problem more than two years ago and that the agency took too long to act.
"The crib is supposed to be the safe sanctuary for your baby and instead it turns into a deathtrap," Kelly said. The Johnses sued Simplicity and settled in June for an undisclosed amount, he said.
A 1-year-old died in a newer crib model that has not been recalled but is being investigated by the commission. That infant also died after the drop-side was installed upside down.
...
This is what happens when a national lets Conservativism rot into its blood.
We stop caring about good anymore, only cheap.
We stop giving a shit that cheap will cost a neighbor her job.
Or her child.
As long as we, personally, are never inconvenienced by ugly, mutilating underbelly of unfettered globalization, well then just fuck it.
Still, perhaps with enough wallops upside the national head one right after another we'll start to wake up to the fact that we're all on the Neocon slaughter line; we all just drew different "Next Served" numbers.
And perhaps after this umpteenth example of a certain industrialized nation recklessly dumping its lethal crap on our shores to make a buck off of crippling and killing our children, we can also slowly begin to collectively comprehend why we ourselves not exactly beloved anymore in certain parts of the developing world.
7 comments:
eeck!! that picture scared me,
a mashup of twilight zone and that bbc show about the dept store would ask, "is our nation being served?"
Right on, drifty. At some point you have to wonder what the real price is for a $19.95 DVD player. We've absorbed that part of it is thousands of lost jobs and disposable consumer goods. Wonder if we'll absorb this? I'm loathe to say we will, because the rationale will go something like this: "The best people work hard to earn enough money to buy products whose makers inspect them and make them safe. These buyers are able to absorb the extra cost of those inspections in the form of higher prices. Therefore, if everyone just worked harder, they'd be able to afford the safer versions, too. See? THe free market takes care of those who take care of themselves."
Still, perhaps with enough wallops upside the national head one right after another we'll start to wake up to the fact that we're all on the Neocon slaughter line; we all just drew different "Next Served" numbers.
I've said this myself (in various ways) for years, but you've said it eloquently, Driftingone.
My thanks for your valiant efforts at this blog to keep stimulating the unthinking until the changes that must be made in our government come to pass.
Suzan
I have just finished reading John Dean's latest book, "Broken Government: How Republican Rule Destroyed the Legislative, Executive, and Judicial Branches". It basically documents in extreme detail what Drift has been elequently ranting about. The extreme right-wing authoritarians *want* to destroy our government,and they have come very close to doing so.
Exsqueeze me, but why is the recall voluntary?
Oh sorry, just me thinking again. I'll try to stop.
No I fucking won't.
Thanks, Drifty honey. xo
To adapt a phrase from one of Mike Myers's SNL characters:
"If it's made in China it's CRAAAAP!
To be fair, in this particular case the problem seems to be in the design work, carried out by westerners, rather than the increasingly common manufacturing fuckups we see coming from China.
This only serves to illustrate that the Chinese lack of interest in our well being is a symptom, not the disease. Even when they're not painting our children's lunchpails with heavy metals, they are still making stuff that was conceived according to the same philosophy. The company that wants the cheapest possible production costs also wants the cheapest possible design and testing costs, and will sacrifice our safety just as easily at any stage.
Even when China is doing its job right, the products are suspect. Mmmm, how good is that? Thanks Invisible Hand! Or is that Invisible Fist? Because I don't feel like I'll be able to sit down properly for quite some time.
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