January 23, 2009
Alright, I just got an official "no comment" from the CPSC spokesperson, but from the text of Rahm Emanuel's memo, it sounds clear to me that the rulemaking and details of the CPSIA's new lead testing and certification standards are...
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11:20 AM
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January 22, 2009
The March issue of ShopSmart, the no-ads shopping guide published by the Consumer Reports folks, includes some tips for figuring out which used baby gear is still considered safe to use. [Get the pdf of the article here.] Though the...
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11:35 PM
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Last week, the CPSC issued the first giant crib recall of the year [um, yeah?] covering over 535,000 Stork Craft cribs, basically every crib the Canadian company made between May 2000 and November 2008. Apparently, the metal brackets holding...
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4:36 PM
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We're just three weeks away from the CPSIA-induced small business apocalypse. Will Obama save us? Will Congress? Will the JPMA? The short answer to each of those questions is easy: nobody knows! The longer answers: On Tuesday, within hours of...
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10:49 AM
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January 19, 2009
As soon as Los Angeles plush artist Wendy Bryan found out that the plush ovaries and Fallopian tubes on her I Heart Guts plush uterus posed a choke hazard, she immediately announced a recall. Even though the plush uteri...
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9:24 PM
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January 12, 2009
I've largely ignored CES this year; I find that my interest in baby-related gadgets and my tolerance of trade show hype shrink in direct inverse proportion to my accumulated experience as a parent. Frankly, it's an alarming position to...
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6:04 PM
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January 8, 2009
The CPSC says the "clarification" issued today about the new CPSIA lead-testing regulations which go into effect Feb. 10. is "Intended for Resellers of Children's Products, Thrift and Consignment Stores." But it's also great news for thrifters, eBay sellers, craigslisters,...
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Posted by greg at
6:25 PM
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Comments (2)
January 6, 2009
I want to fix the CPSIA, the CPSC's new lead testing law, and save all the various children's product industries from regulation-induced bankruptcy and collapse on February 10th as much as the next guy. But I would like to do...
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Posted by greg at
12:18 AM
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Comments (3)
December 28, 2008
So you're a pharmaceutical industry executive. And not only has the FDA muscled you into a "voluntary" withdrawal from the lucrative children's over-the-counter cold & flu medicine market. But your leading antihistamine brand is also the default, one-word punchline for...
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Posted by greg at
11:25 PM
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Comments (2)
December 18, 2008
Good news for the small children's manufacturers, handmade toy and clothing makers, etsy crafters, and everyone else about to be driven out of business by the exorbitant cost of the CPSC's expansive lead testing regulations that go into effect next...
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Posted by greg at
10:02 PM
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Comments (3)
December 17, 2008
Back in September, just as the first shipments of the new Phil & Teds Dash were hitting the streets--and then collapsing when you pushed down on the handle--distributor Regal Lager suggested that customers not use the strollers, but instead return...
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Posted by greg at
11:43 PM
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December 15, 2008
Am I missing something here, or is everyone? Or is this just the way discovering a couple million defective cribs in the market turns up the fire on a pre-existing but slow-simmering process? The CPSC Watchdog at the Chicago Tribune...
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2:36 PM
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December 11, 2008
DT reader Moni flagged this in the September 1951 issue of Popular Mechanics. It's a do-it-yourself "traveling playpen" made from a couple of pieces of hinged plywood, custom fitted to the dimensions of your car's rear seat. The article...
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4:20 PM
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Comments (7)
December 10, 2008
It figures, doesn't it? You wait decades for the Consumer Products Safety Commission to finally get some legislative spine, and what happens? Their brand new lead testing regulations drive every maker of children's products--except for Mattel and Dorel--out of business...
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2:04 PM
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Comments (24)
December 7, 2008
Yeah, so that insane video of that random foreigner guy swinging that baby like a rag doll that was posted to YouTube for a couple of hours? The guy who originally posted it, a liveleak.com user with the name biggles9,...
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Posted by greg at
10:51 PM
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Comments (0)
December 5, 2008
What's the baby and parenting world coming to? Well for one thing, if you joke about the Obama inauguration's stroller ban to a Washington Post reporter, a hundred irate strangers will email you, calling you a shallow, self-centered parent so...
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Posted by greg at
9:35 AM
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Comments (3)
November 16, 2008
The wife's in Argentina, and I hear everything starts late in there. Though I also accept that it's hard to ruin your weekend with alarming parenting news and way-too preliminary research findings if I'm only getting the post out on...
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Posted by greg at
7:48 AM
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November 6, 2008
So early in the summer, Williams-Sonoma began selling the Beaba Babycook, a miraculous food processor/steamer/reheater from France that had been a grey market importing sensation for a couple of years. The only problem: Bisphenol-A [BPA] awareness had kicked in...
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11:52 PM
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Comments (3)
October 30, 2008
This awesome vintage toy zoo from Germany fits into eight beautifully designed matchboxes. The pieces are so small, you have to wonder if they might actually not even be a choke hazard; just wash'em down with an extra bottle....
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Posted by greg at
3:57 PM
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Comments (3)
October 29, 2008
The scientific-sounding arguments about the health risks to infants and toddlers from Bisphenol-A just bounce slowly. from. damning. revelation. to. exoneration. and. back. again. It's like watching Pong on the world's slowest computer. Or like playing chess by mail with...
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Posted by greg at
1:04 PM
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Comments (1)
October 25, 2008
You know, these days it just seems like there's no shortage of things to freakout over--but here are a few more kid- and parenting-related bits of news and research to ruin your weekend quicker'n a rainstorm at the World Series:...
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Posted by greg at
9:41 PM
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Comments (2)
October 16, 2008
David is a new dad and one of the car guys [little c, little g, Magliozzis, relax.] at Cars.com. Well, the kid's six months old now, and Dave's care-free days of swapping the bases for his son's infant car seat...
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Posted by greg at
11:03 AM
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Comments (22)
October 7, 2008
The Friday Freakout is so far away, and we'll be traveling for the holiday anyway. Besides, this is happy extremely preliminary science: Some Bay Area physicians have published a study showing that the use of a fan--and/or an "open window"...
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Posted by greg at
9:34 AM
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September 29, 2008
Haha, just kidding, it totally does! On the plus side, he looks like an overprotected, dorky equestrian. Okbaby is, of course, the Italian firm that brought us the Colibri, the largest portable [sic] changing pad in the world--for moms....
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Posted by greg at
12:30 PM
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Comments (3)
September 19, 2008
I'm sure this week's Freakout will involve the ever-expanding poisoned Chinese formula crisis; BPA--especially in liquid formula cans, not that you can realistically avoid it completely anyway--the asthma risk associated with kids taking paracetamol--fortunately, we use acetominophen in this country,...
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Posted by greg at
10:17 AM
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September 16, 2008
Almost 200,000 MacGregor and Mitre toy soccer goals of death have been sold in the US since 2002. But now the CPSC has issued a recall, following news that a 21-month-old boy died while trying to climb one. I should...
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Posted by greg at
2:14 PM
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Comments (8)
September 15, 2008
The Friday Freakout continues. At least two deaths, 1,253 hospitalized kids, and parental complaints dating back to as early as March. The Chinese Health Ministry has finally ordered a recall of Sanlu baby formula after the additive melamine was found...
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Posted by greg at
12:31 PM
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Comments (0)
September 11, 2008
9/12 UPDATE: I just got off the phone with a spokesman from Regal Lager, confirming that they are "asking consumers" not to use the Dash and to return it to the retailer. Details below. Just got an email from...
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Posted by greg at
12:54 PM
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Comments (12)
WTF CPSC?? The Chicago Tribune's Patricia Callahan is reporting that even as it was expanding a consumer warning last week about 300,000 deadly Simplicity bassinets, the Consumer Products Safety Commission and Graco stayed quiet about 200,000 more bassinets of the...
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Posted by greg at
9:33 AM
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Comments (2)
September 6, 2008
What else can I say? The CPSC's investigative function has been replaced by the Chicago Tribune, and now the agency's safety standard-setting responsibilities are apparently being taken over by freakin' big box retailers. The Chicago Tribune reports that Toys R...
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Posted by greg at
9:38 AM
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Comments (2)
September 2, 2008
The scale of the danger posed by Simplicity's 3-in-1 and 4-in-1 bassinets is becoming clearer: over 900,000 bassinets have been sold with a dangerous design flaw that has led to at least two strangulation deaths in the last year. And...
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Posted by greg at
4:50 PM
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Comments (2)
August 29, 2008
Hey, is the CPSC muscling in on my Friday Freakout action? Regal Lager, the US distributor of Phil & Teds strollers, has issued a voluntary recall in conjunction with the CPSC covering a whopping 44,000 strollers. They're not a threat...
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Posted by greg at
1:39 PM
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Comments (5)
August 28, 2008
Normally when a product is found to cause injury or death, the Consumer Product Safety Commission works with the manufacturer to issue a recall and provide either a fix or a replacement product. But when two kids in the...
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Posted by greg at
11:26 PM
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Comments (6)
August 16, 2008
Finally, a leader who refuses to pander to the giant corporations and foreign demons who threaten the greatness of this Nation! On December 19th, at a campaign appearance in Concord, NH, Senator Barack Obama boldly answered a citizen's question--a question...
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Posted by greg at
1:52 PM
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Comments (7)
August 5, 2008
Don't know how I missed this, from an April 2008 Bloomberg report of a John McCain townhall meeting in Youngstown, Ohio:"I have to tell you, if I were president of the United States, the next toy that came into this...
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Posted by greg at
4:51 PM
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Comments (25)
June 27, 2008
Oddly, there's no alarming research to freakout over this week. Which only means we're not looking closely enough: The CPSC recalled 320,000 Jardine cribs sold at Toys R Us, Babies R Us, Geoffrey's World, and KidsWorld. There have been multiple...
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Posted by greg at
8:54 PM
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Comments (1)
May 23, 2008
BPA. Phthalates. Sugar-spiked formula. Mercury in sushi. There's always some new study or story that stokes parental anxiety and powerless fear in the face of a threatening world, but the uncertainty of when they come out is nervewracking! Which is...
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Posted by greg at
9:37 AM
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Comments (4)
