With the shopping holiday season underway, this is the time of year when many children throughout the Boston area will begin to receive gifts.
Toys are a common present for children, and often kids cannot wait to start playing. Before parents allow kids to enjoy their new toys, however, it is very important to make sure the items the children receive have not been subject to a recall.
A defective or dangerous toy could cause your child to suffer serious injury or even to become sick. While the Consumer Product Safety Commission has made a strong effort to keep unsafe products off store shelves, some toys with health risks slip through the cracks and end up being sold on store shelves. When this happens and your child is hurt or killed due to a defective product, it is important to consult with a Boston defective product lawyer for assistance.
Preventing Injuries from Defective Products This Holiday Season
The Consumer Products Safety Commission (CPSC) has imposed tougher standards in recent years to keep toys with health hazards from being sold in the U.S.
For example, all toys sold in this country must now be tested in independent approved laboratories. The labs are located worldwide and toys made anywhere in the world must undergo testing for lead and other chemicals that could put children at risk.
If a shipment of toys arrives at a U.S. port that has either not undergone the mandated testing or that has undergone and failed the testing, then it will be stopped and the toys will not be allowed to enter the country for sale.
U.S. Customs has worked closely with the CPSC in order to identify shipments of products and make sure that minimum safety standards are being met. In just the past five years alone, more than 9.8 million units of toys with potential defects have been prevented from entering the country. This encompasses around 3,000 different types of toys kept off of store shelves and from potentially harming children.
Although the CPSC and U.S. Customs have made great strides in preventing the sale of defective products, no government agency is perfect, and dangerous toys still end up finding their way to store shelves and into children’s homes. When this happens and the problems are subsequently identified, a recall is launched to alert the public and to remove the defective items from stores or from home use. In 2013, there were 31 toy recalls because of problems and in 2008, there were a total of 172 toy recalls. In 2008, 19 of the recalls involved toys with excessive amounts of lead.
Before a recall occurs, sometimes kids are hurt. In 2010, a total of 19 children were killed by toy defects and in 2011, there were 11 children who lost their lives. The final reports for 2012 and 2013 are not yet in.
Parents need to be aware of the potential for defective toys to be sold, especially around the holidays when new products come into the home. The website of the CPSC provides a resource for parents to determine if any of the toys their kids are playing with have been recalled.
If you are injured in Boston, call Jeffrey Glassman Injury Lawyers for a free and confidential appointment — (617) 777-7777.
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