The CPSC’s mission is “to protect the public against unreasonable
risks of injuries and deaths associated with consumer products.” The
first step in performing this mission is the identification of
hazardous products. CPSC identifies such products primarily by
reviewing injury and death reports from a variety of reporting sources
in the United States, including a national hospital emergency
department reporting system, death certificate data, news clips, fire
department reports, reports received through a national toll-free
telephone hotline for consumers, and perhaps most important of all,
the medical examiner and coroner reporting network.
Reports on fatalities are the most valuable reports and most fatality
reports come from one of two sources with the largest number of
reports coming from the death certificate reporting system. Even
though death certificates are received from all states, they cover a
limited number of deaths, are often received long after the fatality
occurred and frequently contain limited information on the products
involved or incident details. With this inherent delay, the product
has usually been discarded, recall of the incident details and product
by witness or investigators has eroded, and most importantly, valuable
time for implementing remedial strategies has been lost.
Medical examiners and coroners are the most valuable information
source due to timely reporting of product-related fatalities before
the product has been discarded and while the details of the incident
and product use are still fresh. Prompt reporting also permits fast
action by the Commission to remove hazardous products from the
marketplace. Every reported case is screened to determine if there is
a hazardous product involvement. Often, all it takes is one MECAP
report to alert the CPSC to a hazardous product. Such was the case
following the first report of an infant fatality occurring on an
infant cushion. One medical examiner’s report led to the recall of
millions of these cushions and a ban on their manufacture and sale.
An initial report of a fatality involving a portable crib in the
central US was followed by reports in other parts of the country and
the product was recalled. The Commission was first alerted to the
problem of infants drowning in five-gallon buckets by a MECAP report
and as a result, the CPSC is working with bucket manufacturers on a
national public information program. The safety standards and devices
applied to chain saws were developed after Commission engineers and
industry representatives studied the MECAP reports for chain-saw
related deaths. Chain-saw related fatalities have decreased
dramatically in the years since implementation of the new
standards.
For further information regarding the MECAP
program, please use the link provided below.
County Telephone Operator 817-884-1111
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