On November 9th, 2015 CPSC issued a notice of proposed rulemaking (NPR) for incorporating high chair safety standards into Danny’s Law. In May, KID, frustrated by the CPSC’s delay in publishing a final rule, began drafting a report on high chair safety and recent recall trends to call for immediate action.
KID found that:
- The National Electronic Injury Surveillance System (NEISS) estimates that there were approximately 53,808 high chair related injuries from high chairs from 2013 to 2017.
- The 2017 CPSC Nursery Products Annual Report indicates that there were two high chair related deaths between 2012 and 2014.
- Without a mandatory high chair standard, in the past five years, it took on average 25 consumer reports and 3 reported injuries before a manufacturer issued a high chair recall.
After the CPSC NPR had not moved to a final rule for almost three years, on May 30th of this year, prior to publication of the KID high chair safety report, the CPSC recommended a final rule on high chairs. Fortunately, in a unanimous 4-0 vote, the commission approved the high chair rule. All high chairs, commercial and standard, will be mandated to follow the ASTM standard.
Although this is a big victory in keeping children safe, both inside and outside of the home, the new standard only applies to high chairs manufactured after June 19, 2019. This means that products in stores until well after that date do not have to comply to the mandatory standard.
Even after the standard goes into full effect, checking manufacture dates will continue to be essential to make sure any new high chair purchased is compliant with the mandatory standard. Parents and caregivers should continue to vet the products they purchase and reap the benefits of mandatory notifications by filling out product safety cards, so they may be notified of future recalls.
Read the full KID report here. To stay up to date on this issue and others follow KID on Facebook and Twitter and sign up for our monthly email alerts.
