New Unsafe Products Database Under Fire

Consumer Advocates eagerly await March 11, 2011. This is the scheduled launch date for the government database, SaferProducts.gov., where people can share complaints of injury or worse from everyday products such as cribs, high chairs, space heaters and toasters.

The database would be overseen by the Consumer Product Safety Commission (CPSC). Through SaferProducts.gov, anyone will be allowed to submit a report of injury or potential defect or harm. The reports will be reviewed and the manufacturer will receive a copy of the report, and have the opportunity to comment before it is posted on the database for public viewing. The manufacturer will have ten days to respond. Completed Reports and manufacturer comments will be published online at www.SaferProducts.gov for anyone to search. Reports with missing or false information will not be published.

Although there are safeguards in place to ensure accuracy, manufacturers and some members of Congress fear that false, inaccurate, and misleading reports will be filed and posted, resulting in damaging the reputation of manufacturers. An amendment has even been approved in the House to withhold additional funding for the database, which could bring the project to a halt.

Nikki Johns supports the database. “If I had known there had been children killed in drop-sides, it would have swayed me against them," says Johns, who lost her 9-month-old son, Liam, in a faulty crib that came apart at the side rail and trapped the little boy one night after his mom went to bed at their home in Citrus Heights, Calif., nearly six years ago.

The SaferProducts database is just one more way the CPSC is working to protect consumers from injuries and death related to consumer products.

Mark Bello has thirty-three years experience as a trial lawyer and twelve years as an underwriter and situational analyst in the lawsuit funding industry. He is the owner and founder of Lawsuit Financial Corporation which helps provide legal finance cash flow solutions and consulting when necessities of life litigation funding is needed by plaintiffs involved in pending, personal injury litigation. Bello is a Justice Pac member of the American Association for Justice, Sustaining and Justice Pac member of the Michigan Association for Justice, Business Associate of the Florida, Tennessee, and Colorado Associations for Justice, a member of the American Bar Association as well as their ABA Advisory Committee, the State Bar of Michigan and the Injury Board.