Many
Americans are familiar with the lead toy fiasco, but with the thousands of
product recalls of late, it is nearly impossible to keep track of every product
deemed a threat to the health and safety of consumers. Citizens were rightfully concerned, and the federal
government responded with the Consumer Product Safety Improvement Act (CPSIA) of
2008.
In
accordance with Section 212 of the act, the Consumer Product Safety
Commission (CPSC) is developing a publicly accessible, searchable online
database of consumer product incident reports. This website, tentatively
named SaferProducts.gov, will allow consumers to report on and search for
product incidents and recalls, in order to increase consumer awareness and
safety.
CPSC
has two objectives for this website: to protect and inform the public, and to improve
CPSC's ability to identify risks and respond quickly. CPSC recently released a report (pdf) to Congress detailing its plans to achieve these goals. The report includes information on the development
status of the website, outlining the proposed content and functionality of the
site, as well as focusing on efforts to improve public awareness through the
website.
CPSC
held a public hearing on November 10 to receive views on Section 212, but a
transcript of the hearing has yet to be released.