By Rick Garcia
You’d think that the medicine your doctor prescribed the last time you or your child had a severe cold, would have been reviewed by the government for safety and effectiveness.
You’d be wrong.
This week, the Food and Drug Administration ordered some 500 prescription drugs for colds, coughs and allergies off the market because they contain unapproved ingredients and dosage amounts. The manufacturers have 90 days to stop making them and 180 days to stop shipping them. The recall does not affect any over-the-counter drugs.
These drugs have been on the market for years because they were grandfathered in before the Food and Drug Administration changed its drug review process. So the FDA doesn’t know if they are safe or not. “We don’t know what they are, whether they work properly, or how they are made,” Deborah M. Autor, director of the FDA’s Office of Compliance, told reporters. “The problem is that we don’t know what the problem is.”
Neither do many doctors, since the medicines are listed in the Physicians’ Desk Reference and advertised in medical journals.
What the FDA does know is that some common ingredients – such as guaifenesin or pseudoephedrin – haven’t been screened for safety. Of particular concern are dosage amounts for children, especially in light of new findings that caused the FDA to crack down on prescribing any cough medicine for children under the age of 2.
Other FDA concerns include medicines that contain unusual combinations of ingredients or that state they are “timed release” with no documentation to support that claim.
A list of the affected drugs can be found here.
The FDA recommends consumers bring any concerns about these medications to their doctors and that doctors and consumers report any adverse reactions to these drugs to their website.
Heat-producing electric appliances like space heaters, dryers and work lights injure thousands of Americans each year, sometimes leading to death. Despite the safeguards required by the Consumer Product Safety Commission (CPSC), defective products are sold every day in this country and discovered only after leading a family emotionally and financially devastated.
Take the case of one of my clients, Hilario Zamarripa , 46, of Dallas, TX. The faulty Husky brand work light he was using on a job in 2007, ignited paint fumes, which exploded, burning him severely over 20% of his body. He could not work as a painter again to support his family. Two other workers were injured in a similar accident in Galveston, TX last year. They were seriously burned when their work light set off an explosion at their work place.
Work lights are meant to be used at work sites. Work sites contain flammable products and fumes. Manufacturers are legally responsible for ensuring that their products are safe when used in a reasonable manner for the job intended. And they are liable for any injuries or deaths caused when their products fail to meet reasonable safety standards, as in the above burn cases.
Recalled heater fan
Space heaters are another problem product. Wal-Mart recently recalled 2.2 million such heaters after receiving reports of 21 injuries and property damage. In February, the CPSC announced the recall of about 92,000 heater fans and radiant heaters sold by Dollar General because of fire hazards. The CPSC reports that space heaters cause some 25,000 fires every year in the U.S., killing 300 people and sending another 6,000 to emergency rooms.
Fires caused by overheating clothes dryers cause 12,700 fires in residential buildings each year, resulting in 15 deaths and 300 injuries, according to the U.S. Fire Administration.
Product -related fires are reported to the CPSC, which investigates. Sometimes a product is recalled. Lawsuits also help bring the defective product to the attention of
the manufacturers and retailers, which may lead to a safer product design. But the process is slow. Meanwhile, the defective products stay on the market.
Consumers now have a terrific new tool to check out the safety history of products they own or are thinking about buying. Starting March 11, the public will be able to access reports made to the government about dangerous or defective consumer products. This powerful new online tool at www.saferproducts.gov will allow regular people like you and me to see if other people have experienced safety or performance issues with a product before they buy it.
Radiant heater
Just remember, where there’s heat involved in an electrical tool or appliance, there could be fire. For your own safety and your family’s future, check out all instructions and warning labels before use.
By Rick Garcia
Table saws injure 31,500 Americans every year – nearly 10 per day. Many of these involve amputations of hands and fingers, causing life-long disability. The Consumer Product Safety Commission wants manufacturers to adopt new, available technology to greatly reduce these table saw injuries – but the industry is resisting.
“The safety of table saws needs to be improved in a way that prevents school children in shop class and woodworkers from suffering these life-altering injuries,” said CPSC Chairman Inez Tenenbaum in a story in USA TODAY.
At issue is a new technology developed by inventor Stephen Gass that stops blades from turning when flesh is detected. Gass has been trying for years to get the CPSC to require that tool-makers use this technology, or something similar, to prevent saw injuries.
But the industry has been fighting such a requirement since at least 2007, telling the CPSC that it prefers “voluntary rule making.” This is where the industry adopts its own standards. But so far the industry has done nothing toward this goal. They complain that Gass’s solution is too expensive and that his patents have kept them from developing their own technology.
Meanwhile, the CPSC estimates the cost to society of saw-related injuries is about $2 billion a year. Hundreds of lawsuits have been filed noting that the technology to prevent table saw injuries has been available for some time. Last March, a jury awarded $1.5 million to a man who lost his hand.
Woodworking is a popular hobby in the U.S. According to a 2010 study conducted by the Center for Injury Research and Policy, Columbus, OH, from 1990-2007, an estimated 565,670 non-occupational table saw-related injuries were treated in US hospital emergency departments.
According to the study, lacerations (66 percent) were the most common type of injury while amputations (10 percent) were the most serious. By far the majority of injuries were to the fingers or thumbs. Adult men accounted for most of the injuries. Children were more likely to injure their heads, faces and necks and to be injured at school.
As to the cause of the blade contact, kickback was the most common finding, followed by debris being thrown by the saw, lifting or moving the saw, or getting a glove or clothing caught in the blade.
Given the widespread use of table saws and the continuing number and severity of injuries, the power-tool industry can no longer justify ignoring a readily available solution. The additional cost to the price of a table saw is no comparison to the price of losing a hand or a finger.
By Rick Garcia
Starting March 11, the public will be able to access reports made to the government about dangerous or defective consumer products – something that has never been available before. How cool is that?
This powerful new online tool at www.saferproducts.gov will allow regular people like you and me to see if other people have experienced safety or performance issues with a product before they buy it. Before, most people didn’t know they were using a potentially dangerous product until they read about it or saw on TV that it had been recalled. The government recall process often takes years, leaving owners of dangerous products playing “Russian Roulette.”
Here’s how it will work. Just like now, consumers who have a bad experience with a product can submit a report about that product to the Consumer Product Safety Commission either by going on line at www.cppc.gov, or calling the consumer hotline number at 1-800-638-2772. The person making the complaint will need to:
- Describe the product involved
- Identify the manufacturer or private labeler
- Describe the injury or damage
- Provide contact information
- Verify what they are reporting is true
Under the new open database system, the CPC will notify the manufacturer about the report by email within five days. The manufacturer will have 10 days to respond. Unless the complaint has some major inaccuracy or confidential information in it, the CPSC will make the report available to the public within 15 days of receiving it. Businesses will have the chance to attach comments to any report.
According to the CPSC, the database will not be used as a place for customers to complain about customer service or about a product that didn’t do everything they wanted it to do. It will only be used to report incidents that involve physical or property harm or potential harm.
The CPSC says the database is the biggest open government project the U.S. has seen to date. The system was created as a result of the Consumer Product Safety Improvement Act of 2008.
Before this database, the only access the public had to these reports was filing an Open Records Request, and the CPSC had to get the manufacturer’s permission to release any information about the product. If the CPSC got enough complaints, it would initiate a recall. This process was complicated and took a lot of time — definitely not consumer friendly.
This is a good move by the CPSC and a big win for folks like you and me.
By Rick Garcia
I usually toss those little warranty cards that come with products. I think of them as marketing ploys to send me junk mail. But no more, at least when it comes to baby and child products.
As of June 28, manufacturers of durable infant or toddler products sold in the U.S. are required by law to include postage-paid registration cards with products. They also must provide consumers a way to register online. Consumers who fill out and mail back the cards or who register online are then contacted by the manufacturer directly in case of a recall or other safety issue. Importantly, as part of the law, companies can’t use personal information for marketing purposes.
This puts those little cards in the “must do” category for me now.
I applaud the goal of increasing consumer awareness and expanding the effectiveness of recalls so that faulty products don’t stay in use. Currently, the return rate for all recalled products is only about 30 percent, according to the Consumer Product Safety Commission. Given the CPC’s upswing in recalled children’s and baby products (see previous blogs),this amounts to hundreds of thousands of unsafe products still in use by child caregivers.
Part of the reason for the low compliance rate is “recall fatigue,” according to a story in the Washington Post. The story quotes William Hallman, professor of human ecology at New Jersey’s Rutgers University, who noted, “There is so much information out there, if you paid attention to every recall notice that came out every day, you’d go nuts.”
Hallman, who has studied consumer attitudes toward food recalls, added that he conducted a national survey last year in which 12 percent of respondents said they knowingly had eaten a recalled food.
While you digest that, back to child product recalls.
The registration law currently affects only 18 types of durable products, ranging from full-size cribs, bassinets and cradles, to high chairs, play yards, baby swings and nursery equipment – not soft items like blankets and diapers. Starting in December, the law will expand to include children’s folding chairs, changing tables, infant bouncers, tubs, bed rails and infant slings. The law does not cover toys.
Of course there’s still the problem of used baby products that transferred ownership by way of garage sales or hand-me-downs. Although the law doesn’t cover used items, owners of used products can register online and get the same recall information.
Last but not least, the CPSC also has created an application for Android phones and iPhones that will allow consumers shopping at yard sales, resale outlets or retail stores to check if a product has been recalled before purchasing it. The app can be downloaded at www.recalls.gov
Consumers can also join a CPSC e-mail subscription list and get automatically notified of recalls by category. To join a list go to www.cpsc.gov/cpsclist.aspx
So, for buyers of new products and even used ones, now there’s no excuse for not getting notified about safety recalls. That goes for me, too.
By Rick Garcia
When Congress returns to work after the fall elections, it has a golden opportunity to put teeth into U.S. consumer law by voting in the Foreign Manufacturers Accountability Act. This act, which has bi-partisan support, would make it easier to sue foreign companies whose products injure and kill Americans, thus putting pressure on these companies to manufacturer products to U.S. safety standards.
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In my last blog I dealt with the bathroom and the kitchen in my quest to “take five” and find five toxic products in different areas of my home. Today I deal with the laundry room and the garage, where pretty much everything seems to come with a warning against eating, drinking or even touching without gloves.
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(Garcia blog poisons – Part I)
When my kids were young, my wife and I were very careful about keeping toxic products on high shelves or behind cabinet doors with baby latches. The kids are older now and we don’t worry so much. But the other day a friend was telling me about how a neighbor’s two-year-old got into his wife’s cosmetic drawer and ate three tubes of lipstick and ended up in the emergency room.
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Gomez vs. Ropak Southwest, Inc.
In this case, an 11-month-old girl drowned in a five-gallon bucket with only a few inches of water in it. Garcia & Karam successfully settled the case. Afterwards, we worked with legislators to introduce laws requiring a more specific warning label on buckets. To prevent further injuries or deaths, we asked manufacturers to equip their product with an inexpensive device called a “restrictor ring.”
A 49-year-old businessman and father died during a routine heart procedure. A defective medical device went out of control and slashed his heart tissue. We discovered that, if a 25¢ brake was added during manufacturing, the problem would have been prevented. Loose rules allowed Boston Scientific to avoid FDA review of the equipment. Along with doctors, Garcia & Karam petitioned the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) to tighten rules on how they approve medical equipment.
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