Thursday, December 16, 2010

Get The Fed Out Of Our Kids Bedrooms

Seriously, why doesn’t the Fed do what they’re supposed to do and get out of our personal lives and the lives of our kids?

By de Andréa

Taking freedom of choice and personal responsibility away from individual citizens is one of the very favorite preoccupations of the Federal Government.

The Federal Government has no constitutional right or responsibility to ban a piece of furniture.

The federal government is coming down on drop-side cribs saying “the risk they pose to children is not worth the convenience to caregivers”. Says the CPSC

This insanity is tantamount to banning air filled automobile tires because some of them blow out or leak. If it’s a faulty line of tires, then recall the tires, but banning them completely would obviously be quite insane.

Dropside Baby cribs have been made, sold, and safely used longer then air filled tires. And yet now we are banning them.

I personally grew up sleeping in one of these so-called death traps and so did my brother 10 years later. And I can testify that both of us are very much alive and unharmed in spite of the dangerous ordeal.

They are defiantly not the dangerous monsters that the Consumer Product Safety Commission claims. Granted they may have found some cheep cribs made in Indonesia or Sri Lanka that were badly designed and poorly built. But is this a reason to ban an American made quality designed and manufactured product that has been used safely for over 100 years?

The Consumer Product Safety Commission voted unanimously Wednesday to ban the manufacture, sale, and resale of the cribs - which have been blamed for at least 30 deaths and multiple injuries in the last 10 years.

Note: Tricycles and SUV’s kill 100’s of children a year and we don’t see those banned. Why? Because it would be insane, that's why.

For as long as most can remember, babies have spent their early years in cribs with side drop down gates that make it easier to take a baby in and out. It saves the parents from serious injury to their backs. (The original reason for the design)

Parents interviewed by CBS News were split about whether they really are safe or not. “I haven't had any problems with them and I personally like it,” said one woman on TV News. “The one that I have is a 3-in-1 so you can keep it for a long time. It goes from a crib to a toddler bed then it can go to a full-size bed.”

For at least one parent, these products can't be off the shelves soon enough, “I don't think it's safe," said another woman. “Because it could fall down and a kid could get hurt or it's not just sturdy enough for nowadays.”

Mother with a mission:
Mother Michele Witte says, “My son Tyler got his neck caught between the rail and the sideboard of his 2-year-old new oak drop side crib when a single metal screw became loose, entrapping him.” The Long Island mother's 10-month-old son later died, setting her on a path to work to get drop-side cribs off the market.

Owners of recalled cribs have already been urged to stop using them if possible, and they can get repair kits from the manufacturers.

Sen. Kirsten Gillibrand’s office sent out a news release about the ban and legislative efforts to ban these cribs:

“AFTER MORE THAN 30 INFANT DEATHS SINCE 2001, CPSC, GILLIBRAND, CROWLEY, SCHAKOWSKY ANNOUNCE APPROVAL OF NEW FEDERAL RULES TO END DANGEROUS DROP-SIDE CRIBS “

Washington, DC – U.S. Product Safety Commission (CPSC) Chairman Inez Tenenbaum, U.S. Senator Kirsten Gillibrand (D-NY), Representatives Joseph Crowley (D-NY) and Jan Schakowsky (D-IL), and a parent whose child died from a faulty crib announced today that the CPSC has approved new federal rules to end dangerous, traditional drop-side cribs. The new federal crib standards, set to take effect in June, would stop the sale, re-sale, manufacture, and distribution of drop-side cribs and would also prohibit drop-side cribs at motels, hotels and childcare facilities. Drop side cribs have resulted in the deaths of at least 32 infants since 2001.

This is interesting:
This is the first time in nearly 30 years that federal crib standards have been updated.
Maybe we should have tried this first, maybe, ya think? Or enforced the standards that have existed for more than one hundred years.

In May 2010, Senator Gillibrand and Representative Crowley launched an effort in Congress to ban all drop-side cribs, including in daycare centers and hotels, introducing legislation in the Senate and the House. Today’s new crib safety rules address a requirement, authored by Rep. Jan Schakowsky, in the Consumer Product Safety Improvement Act (CPSIA) of 2008 that calls for all major juvenile products, including cribs, to have the strongest possible mandatory safety standards. The CPSIA is a sweeping child safety law. Question, why wasn’t that enforced for at least the past two years???

THE BOTTOM LINE: One woman’s vendetta, Michele Witte, whose 10 month old son tragically died because the 2 year old crib was in disrepair. The report said a screw had come undone over the years and obviously malfunctioned so we blame the crib instead of the parent. That’s like blaming the SUV instead of the driver or the gun instead of the shooter.

The second line idem on the crib safety guide provided free by the Consumer Protection Board reads as follows : “Their should be --- No missing, loose, broken or improperly installed screws, brackets, staples, rails or other hardware on the crib or mattress support”. Read it for yourself. I guess Mrs. Witte was just too busy or irresponsible to check the safety of her 10 month old son’s two year old crib.

Oh…right! She’s not responsible, the government is…

As I said at the beginning of this article “Taking freedom of choice and personal responsibility away from individual citizens is one of the very favorite preoccupations of the Federal Government.”

The next things they’ll be banning are toys with children’s meals or forcing us to wear safety items or banning certain foods. Oh…sorry! They’ve already done that…

de Andréa

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