NEW on Health Canada’s Consumer Product Safety Website
(Health Canada)
Date: April 29, 2013
Tag » Product Safety
CPSC Looking to Reduce Third-Party Testing Burden for Children’s Products
(STR Trade Report)
The Consumer Product Safety Commission is seeking no later than June 17 information that could be used to ease the requirement for certain children’s products to be tested by a third-party CPSC-accepted laboratory for compliance with applicable safety rules.
The CPSC is seeking data and information on whether there are materials used in the manufacture of certain children’s products that can be determined not to include a prohibited element or chemical such that third-party testing is not required. These products and the associated prohibited elements or chemicals are toys (antimony, arsenic, barium, cadmium, chromium, lead, mercury and selenium), toys and child care articles (the phthalates DBP, BBP, DEHP, DnOP, DINP and DIDP), manufactured woods such as particle board, medium-density fiber board and plywood (lead), and synthetic food dyes (lead). Read more here.
Date: April 17, 2013
NEW on Health Canada’s Consumer Product Safety Website
Date: January 31, 2013
Product Safety Tests Drop after Tougher Law Enacted
(Sarah Schmidt – Postmedia News)
The number of product safety tests conducted by Health Canada plummeted after a new law was passed granting the government new powers to pull dangerous products from store shelves, newly released data show.
The department carried out 269 tests in their product-safety laboratories in 2011-12, down from 627 just two years earlier, representing a drop of 57%. Inspections also appear to be down significantly, with 12,050 performed in 2009-10 compared to as few as 4,797 last year. The average number of annual inspections conducted per inspector also appears to have dropped, from 121 to an estimated 60 in the same period. Read more here.
Date: September 21, 2012
Auto Safety Agency, CBP to Share Info on Imported Goods
(Mark Rockwell – GSN)
The U.S. Department of Transportation’s National Highway Traffic Safety Administration (NHTSA) is the eighth agency to join Custom and Border Protection’s import safety analysis lab.
The nation’s chief automotive safety inspection agency, NHTSA, joined CBP’s Import Safety Commercial Targeting and Analysis Center (CTAC), the multi-agency center that targets commercial shipments that pose potential threats to health and safety, said CBP on July 18.
CBP has seen a steady increase in the number of imports seized for safety reasons. The agency notes on its Website that the number of such seizures rose from 1,296 in 2007 to 3,768 in 2010. Read more here.
Date: July 24, 2012
Counterfeit Cosmetics May Pose Health Risk
(Alison Crawford — CBC News)
Knockoff makeup has caused allergic reactions and posed bacterial threat, says industry
It started with purses and sunglasses.
Now Canadians are buying counterfeit makeup, perfume, shampoo and other health and beauty products the RCMP warns could endanger the public. In the last six months, the RCMP in the Toronto area has seized tens of millions of dollars worth of knockoff goods.
“We’ve estimated that counterfeiters would quadruple their money on a load of counterfeit goods. And that’s a conservative estimate,” said RCMP Insp. Todd Gilmore. He said almost half of all knockoff goods seized are health and beauty products that people apply to their hair and skin or rub around their eyes, nose and mouth.
“Counterfeiters have no regard for your health and safety. They just want to maximize their profits. Who knows how this was produced.” Read more here
Related: Should Border Agents be Able to Seize Counterfeit Goods? (Online CBC Poll)
Date: February 24, 2012
Revised U.S. Toy Safety Standard to Become Mandatory June 12
(ST&R Trade Report)
The Consumer Product Safety Commission has announced that the revised ASTM F963-11 standard, “Standard Consumer Safety Specifications for Toy Safety,” will become a mandatory consumer product safety standard effective June 12.
The previous version of this standard was established as a mandatory standard pursuant to the Consumer Product Safety Improvement Act of 2008. The CPSC notes that because ASTM F963-11 does not reincorporate section 4.27 (toy chests) of ASTM F963-07, that provision remains in effect.
Click here for the CPSC notice.
Date: February 23, 2012
Proactive at the Ports: CPSC Stops Unsafe Products Before They Reach Consumers
(CPSC via Marketwire)
Stepped up efforts by the U.S. Consumer Product Safety Commission (CPSC) to be more proactive have resulted in hundreds of millions of violative or dangerous units of products being stopped at U.S. ports and prevented from ever reaching the hands of consumers. [...]
Port surveillance is not new. Imported products have long been screened at the port by CPSC and CBP. However, since its creation in 2008, CPSC’s import surveillance and inspection team, has steadily increased the size of its staff at some of the largest U.S. ports of entry, at CPSC’s headquarters and at a CBP operations center.
“The marketplace of imported consumer goods has expanded rapidly in recent years requiring CPSC to take an increasingly global view of consumer product safety,” said Carol Cave, Director of the Office of Import Surveillance and Inspection. Read more here.
Date: January 9, 2012
New CPSC Registry for Small Batch Children’s Product Manufacturers
(World Trade Interactive)
The Consumer Product Safety Commission recently launched a new registry for small batch manufacturers, which can be found at www.SaferProducts.gov. Small batch manufacturers are defined as those who earned $1 million or less in total gross revenues from sales of consumer products in 2011 and who produced in total no more than 7,500 units of at least one consumer product in 2011. Read more here.
Date: January 5, 2012
CPSC Eases Hazardous Product Reporting, Communication
(World Trade Interactive)
Largely in response to requests and feedback from businesses and trade associations, the Consumer Product Safety Commission launched this week two new features to the SaferProducts.gov business portal. This consumer product safety information database was launched in March and as of Oct. 31 contained more than 4,100 consumer product-related reports.
First, CPSC has made available a new online form that allows manufacturers, private labelers and importers to quickly submit required reports of potentially hazardous or defective products. Second, all registered manufacturers, importers and private labelers identified in incident reports will now receive notices electronically, regardless of whether the report is eligible to be published on SaferProducts.gov. Previously, businesses could only receive SaferProducts-eligible reports electronically and others were sent by postal mail.
CPCC states that with these changes “the structure has been put in place to eventually allow businesses registered in the Business Portal to add brand names for products they sell or have sold” along with the time periods during which each brand was sold. This information will help CPSC more easily contact the appropriate business when a report about a product is submitted to SaferProducts.gov.
Date: November 14, 2011
CPSC Publishes Rules on Testing and Certification of Children’s Products
(World Trade Interactive)
Four new Consumer Product Safety Commission rules associated with testing and certification of children’s products will be published in the Nov. 8, 2011, Federal Register. Read more here.
Date: November 8, 2011
CPSC Adopts Rules on Third-Party Testing for Children’s Products, Seeks to Minimize Costs
(World Trade Interactive)
The Consumer Product Safety Commission announced Oct. 20 the approval of several new rules associated with testing and certification of children’s products, as required under the Consumer Product Safety Improvement Act of 2008. The CPSC states that these new rules are intended to help clarify the options for testing upon which firms can base their certifications. However, one commissioner said the new rules impose “an overreaching testing and certification regime that will drive up costs for consumers and deprive them of choices while adding only nominally to consumer safety.”
Third-Party Testing
Domestic manufacturers, importers and private labelers will be required to test and certify that their children’s products comply with U.S. product safety standards. The CPSC has now adopted a framework regarding third-party periodic testing to ensure continued compliance with this requirement. If there is a material change to the product, such as changes in the product design, manufacturing process or source of component parts, firms must re-test and re-certify that the product complies with federal safety standards. In addition, firms must keep records on this testing and certification. Children’s products that comply with the law may bear the label, “Meets CPSC Safety Requirements.” This testing and certification rule will go into effect 15 months after it is published in the Federal Register. Read more here.
Date: October 27, 2011
CPSC Database Faces First Legal Challenge
(Washington Post – Dina ElBoghdady)
A new consumer complaints database faced its first legal challenge this week when a company tried to block the federal agency that runs it from posting what the firm described as “baseless allegations” against its product.
The database, launched in March by the Consumer Product Safety Commission, is a Web site where consumers can report and review incidents involving any of the thousands of products that the agency regulates – from candles to refrigerators.
The lawsuit against the CPSC marks the most recent jab at the database by product manufacturers and their allies in Congress since the site was created three years ago as part of a broader product-safety reform measure.
Critics say that any inaccurate information on the site unfairly threatens a company’s profits and misleads consumers. But consumer advocates say the reporting system allows regulators and consumers to more quickly spot and address emerging hazards. Read more here.
Date: October 21, 2011
CPSC Developing Plan for Regular Review of Regulations
(World Trade Interactive)
The Consumer Product Safety Commission is inviting public comments by Dec. 19 on the appropriate process and substance of a plan to review the agency’s existing regulations.
CPSC has conducted reviews of its rules in the past and intends to build on that experience to develop a plan of review that also satisfies the direction in a July 2011 executive order stating that independent regulatory agencies should follow certain key principles when developing new regulations and should review existing significant regulations to identify those that are obsolete, unnecessary, redundant, unjustified, excessively burdensome or counterproductive. The agency notes that while it has issued few rules that would be considered “significant,” its review will not be limited to significant regulations or those that have a significant economic impact on a substantial number of small entities. Read more here.
Date: October 20, 2011
U.S., Canada and Mexico Join Forces to Strengthen Consumer Product Safety Across North America
The U.S. Consumer Product Safety Commission (CPSC), Health Canada, and the Consumer Protection Federal Agency of the United Mexican States (Profeco) concluded a first-of-its-kind consumer product safety Summit that was aimed at strengthening the protections for children and consumers throughout North America. The three federal agencies with jurisdiction over consumer products in the United States, Canada, and Mexico issued a joint statement promoting greater cooperation and engagement in ensuring the safety of products made and sold across North America.
According to the U.S. Trade Representative, the North America Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA) among the U.S., Canada, and Mexico created the world’s largest free trade area, linking 450 million people producing $17 trillion worth of goods and services. The increasing volume of global trade and the complexity of global supply chains require cooperation among consumer product safety authorities. The organizations agreed to explore further opportunities for collaboration in the following six areas:
• consultation on proposed regulations and voluntary standards,
• cooperation on risk assessment,
• cooperation on import and market surveillance,
• cooperation on training and outreach within and outside North America,
• coordinated consumer awareness campaigns, and
• consultation on potential joint recalls or corrective actions.
“We are facing common challenges and opportunities to promote product safety, and we can be more effective in protecting consumers in the United States and across North America through collaboration and being proactive,” said CPSC’s Chairman Inez Tenenbaum.
“Having real intelligence to identify product safety risks is vital to reassure the consumers of our countries that we have secure borders, and companies that are committed to the consumer,” said Profeco’s Federal Consumer Attorney, Bernardo Altamirano Rodriguez.
Imports from Mexico and Canada accounted for the second and third largest shares, respectively, of imported consumer products likely to be under CPSC jurisdiction. Both countries share major land borders with the U.S. and products produced in or imported from outside North America to any of our three countries may easily find their way into another partner’s jurisdiction. Read more »
Date: September 29, 2011
U.S. Product Safety Reform Bill Should Make Life Easier for Business
(World Trade Interactive)
President Obama signed into law Aug. 12 legislation that makes a number of revisions to the Consumer Product Safety Improvement Act of 2008 to address concerns about the regulatory burdens it has created for manufacturers and retailers of consumer goods, particularly children’s products. The changes should lower compliance costs and ease strict requirements that had proven hugely demanding, even forcing some companies to go out of business.
The new law’s most immediate impact will be on the 100 parts per million limit on lead in children’s products scheduled to take effect Aug. 14. This lower limit will now be applied only to goods manufactured on or after Aug. 14, thus allowing the sale of goods compliant with the previous 300 ppm limit that are already in the supply chain or on retail shelves as of that date. Any future reductions in this limit will be similarly prospective. Read more here.
Date: August 17, 2011
Accreditation Requirements for Third-Party Labs Testing to Toy Safety Standards
(World Trade Interactive)
The Consumer Product Safety Commission has issued a notice that provides the criteria and process for its acceptance of accreditation of third-party conformity assessment bodies for testing pursuant to the safety standards for toys (ASTM F 963-08 and section 4.27 (toy chests) from ASTM F 963-07ε1). Accordingly, toys manufactured after Dec. 31, 2011, cannot be imported for consumption or warehousing or distributed in commerce unless the manufacturers (including importers) or private labelers have first (a) had samples of such product, or samples that are identical in all material respects to such product, tested by a third-party conformity assessment body accredited to do so and (b) issued a certificate of compliance with the applicable regulations based on that testing. Read more here.
Date: August 4, 2011
Senate Approves CPSC Overhaul Before Adjourning
(The Hill – Pete Kasperowicz)
The Senate on Monday evening approved H.R. 2715, a bill that would give the Consumer Product Safety Commission new authority to exempt some children’s products from strict lead content guidelines that many companies have argued are unwieldy.
The Senate approved H.R. 2715 by voice vote just before adjourning. Earlier in the day, the House approved the same bill in a 421-2 vote. Read more here.
Date: August 3, 2011
CPSC Adopts Testing Requirements for Children’s Toys
(PR Newswire)
The U.S. Consumer Product Safety Commission (CPSC) voted 5-0 on July 20 to approve new third party testing requirements, through a notice of requirements, to ensure the safety of children’s toys. While the toy industry has had to comply with mandatory toy safety requirements for more than two years, the Commission voted to give manufacturers, importers and private labelers additional time to put a third party testing program into place.
CPSC has approved a stay of enforcement on the requirement for third party testing and certification of children’s toys until December 31, 2011. The Commission will enforce third party testing and certification of compliance based on the testing for toys manufactured or imported after that date.
In the Consumer Product Safety Improvement Act of 2008 (CPSIA), Congress required that the existing voluntary standard become a mandatory standard and directed CPSC to require testing to that standard. In May 2009, the Commission adopted the updated voluntary ASTM standard known as F 963-08 as the mandatory safety standard for toys and ASTM F 963-07-1 as the mandatory safety standard for toy chests.
Safeguards in the mandatory toy standard strive to eliminate electrical, thermal and mechanical hazards, including cuts from broken wires, strangulations from long cords, burns from heating elements, shocks from electrical circuits and suffocations from hemispherical-shaped objects.
Date: July 25, 2011
