Honor Danny’s memory
Thirteen years ago today Linda and Boaz and his big brother Ely, dropped Danny off at his child care home in Chicago for the last time. That day, Danny was strangled when the portable crib he was napping in collapsed around his neck.
His family soon learned to their dismay, that other children had already died in that same product — Danny was the fifth child to die in the Playskool Travel-Lite crib and the 12th child to die in cribs using the same deadly design. And portable cribs are just one of the myriad products that have killed and injured children through faulty designs.
In their grief, they founded Kids In Danger (KID) to educate other parents and caregivers and more importantly, to advocate for a strong children’s product safety system so no other family would suffer their loss.
And much progress has been made — new strong standards for cribs and other infant products, required testing to make sure products are safe before they are sold, and new access to information that might protect another child from a deadly product through the CPSC’s SaferProducts.gov database of injury reports.
But so much more must be done — including protecting some of the ground we gained in the past 13 years. It can only be a horrific irony that the House Subcommittee on Commerce, Manufacturing and Trade is today of all days considering an amendment to weaken the product safety law that carries Danny’s name and was passed in 2008.
Here at KID we use this day to honor Danny’s memory by continuing our work for safer children’s products. We ask you to join us by contributing $13 to KID in Danny’s name. Each dollar, for every year we have missed Danny, will be used to protect children by improving children’s product safety.