Jul 15, 2014 in News Recalls

Recalls: Children?s products recalls ineffective

[caption id="attachment_6303" align="alignleft" width="300"] (Photo credit: US CPSC/Flickr)[/caption] The number of recalls has climbed drastically within the last few years. Sometimes it seems there's a new recall every day, whether it's meats with traces of listeria which could leave someone very ill or a GM vehicle with ignition issues which could make the vehicle dangerous to drive. Consumers have the right to expect the products they purchase are safe to use and eat. While companies have controls in place to verify safety, for whatever reason, unsafe products may be sold on the marketplace to unsuspecting consumers. Recalls can either be done on a voluntary basis or certain departments have the author_idity to pull them off shelves, which many products fall under the jurisdiction of Canada's Consumer Product Safety Act. Parties who must follow the act are those who: manufacture the product, import the product into our country, sell a product, advertise a product, test a product or package a product. For Canadian consumers who want to know whether their products are affected, the Healthy Canadians database details advisories, recalls and safety alerts from Health Canada, the Canadian Food Inspection Agency and Transport Canada. Each advisory details the product, what customers should do, what to look for and the risks involved with these products. But a recent study in the U.S. may show that these recalls aren't as effective as they could be. There's a very small 10 per cent response rate for recalled children's products, whether it's having the toy destroyed or fixed, according to a recent Kids in Danger report. Even after a recall is issued, there were still 584 product incidents and 39 injuries, says the report. Clothing and nursery products were responsible for 52 per cent of reported injuries in 2013 and on average, it typically takes 14 reports with design issues and two accidents before a company yanks a product off the shelves. In many situations, companies should act quickly to recall items before they cause more harm to others who assume the product is safe. One prime example is the ongoing GM recall issue, which has seen the company fined $35 million due to its faulty ignitions that are connected to the deaths of 13 people, possibly more, within the last decade. The company is under scrutiny for its slow lead time to a recall and a recent independent report found that there was no sense of urgency to pull the cars off the assembly line and notify customers. The company is also facing multiple class action lawsuits in Canada and across the border. Toyota also recently recalled a large number of vehicles (6.4 million), which comes after the company settled in a $1.2 billion lawsuit with the U.S. Department of Justice over unintended acceleration problems in its cars that led to many accidents. Product recalls can have very real, unintended and harmful consequences for families and their loved ones and you have the right to file a personal injury lawsuit for a product's liability. The personal injury and accident lawyers at Neinstein Personal Injury Lawyers have handled personal injury cases throughout Ontario for over 50 years. Call us at 416-920-4242, set up a free consultation, and come speak with us.