In 2019, Fisher-Price recalled nearly five million Rock ‘n Play sleepers after dozens of infants died as a result of their potentially dangerous design. In the wake of this tragedy, President Biden signed a prohibition of specific inclined sleep devices into law and the U.S. Consumer Product Safety Commission (CPSC) instituted new safety standards for infant sleep products generally.
Yet, partially because the recall system remains imperfect, a dozen additional infants have died in Rock n’ Play devices since they were recalled more than two years ago. As a result, Fisher-Price and the CPSC are jointly re-announcing the recall of this product.
The limitations of the recall process
Federal data indicates that more products were recalled in the U.S. in 2022 than in any other year in the last few decades. By the time a recall is announced, people have usually already been hurt by whatever product is being recalled. And even after a recall is announced, alerting people to the danger they face can be challenging. Most people don’t sit around Googling which products are most likely to hurt them.
Staying informed helps
Remaining informed about both active recalls and widespread consumer safety concerns can help you to keep yourself and your loved ones safe. Although you likely don’t have a great deal of time on your hands, if you can spend three minutes every Monday morning (for example) scanning headlines related to “product recalls” and “product safety” you may learn information that could potentially save lives.
If you or a loved one is ever hurt as a result of an unreasonably dangerous or defective product, researching news related to that product can be helpful too. Doing so will let you know whether others have started reporting similar dangers, filing personal injury lawsuits, requesting CPSC investigations and so on. You’ll then be able to make decisions that are informed based on how concerns related to this product are (or are not) already being addressed.
