Fingertip amputations prompt recall of 1.5 million Graco strollers

[Ghost in the Machine]

By CHRISTINE SIMMONS
The Associated Press

Updated: 11:00 a.m. Wednesday, Jan. 20, 2010
Posted: 7:05 a.m. Wednesday, Jan. 20, 2010


WASHINGTON — About 1.5 million Graco strollers sold at Wal-Mart, Target and other major retailers are being recalled after some children's fingertips were amputated by hinges on the products.

The recall by Graco Children's Products Inc. includes certain model numbers of its Passage, Alano and Spree Strollers and Travel Systems. The Exton, Pa., company received seven reports of children placing their fingers in a stroller's canopy hinge as the canopy was being opened or closed. Five children had their fingertips severed and two children received cuts on their fingertips.

The strollers were made in China by Graco and sold at AAFES, Burlington Coat Factory, Babies R Us, Toys R Us, Kmart, Fred Meyer, Meijer, Navy Exchange, Sears, Target, Wal-Mart and other retailers nationwide from October 2004 to December 2009.

In announcing the recall Wednesday, the Consumer Product Safety Commission said the strollers pose an amputation and laceration hazard to children when opening or closing the canopy. The government advised consumers to stop using the strollers and contact Graco to receive a free repair kit.

The recall involves strollers made between October 2004 and February 2008. The model numbers and manufacture dates are on the lower inside portion of the rear frame, just above the rear wheels.

http://www.palmbeachpost.com/money/fingertip-amputations-prompt-recall-of-1-5-million-186907.html

[virgogal]

1. Good lord! That's a lot of defective strollers. Made in China---what a surprise.

[Cal Carpenter]

3. Made in China to the specifications and quality standards required

by the US companies which commissioned them.

It seems like people think China is making all this stuff on their own. They are doing it because US companies design and order the products.

Not to defend China - it's got it's problems. But I see comments like yours a lot and I think we all need to be clearer about WHY all this 'Made in China' crap sucks so bad.

[lame54]

4. China blindly approves these designs...

they don't give a fuck - they just want the contract

[Cal Carpenter]

6. What do you mean 'China' approves these designs?

The whole country gets a memo and gives the go-ahead?

No, either a Chinese manufacturing company receives an order from a US company (eg the maker of this stroller) and they fulfill it, or the US-based company actually builds and runs the factory themselves. Either way, this is private companies doing private business.

If it weren't China, it'd be some other country.

Again, not trying to defend China, just trying to inject a little intellectual honesty into the conversation. We blame Communist China for all sorts of things, while they are neither communist nor directly responsible for the cheap crappy products US companies like to profit from. They're really just opportunistic capitalists with a shoddy human rights record. Kinda like the US. ha ha.

[ddeclue]

24. In China a manufacturing company IS the government.

[Cal Carpenter]

25. That's just not true

Private industry in China has been growing by leaps and bounds for the last 20 years (or 30 by now? Time flies). There are private businesses and foreign-invested businesses that are not state-controlled.

Random quick google and I found this article about wind turbines of all things:

"Turbines

According to Steve Sawyer, secretary general of the Global Wind Energy Council, by 2009 China will become the world's largest producer of wind turbines. At present China has at least 40 wind-power turbine manufacturers: 17 are state-owned or state-controlled companies, 12 are private Chinese companies, 7 are joint-venture companies and 4 are wholly foreign-owned companies. "

http://www.renewableenergyworld.com/rea/news/article/2008/07/chinas-wind-power-industry-localizing-equipment-manufacturing-53076

That's the first thing I found. :shrug:

[ddeclue]

27. OK ... BE Naive if you want to but you obviously don't understand China OR Asia in general.

Asian countries subsidize, protect and control their supposedly "independent" and "private" businesses to a far greater degree than you imagine and it's not just China but also Korea, Japan and Vietnam.

[Cal Carpenter]

28. And so does the US

Directly and indirectly.

Farms and the food industry as a whole
Banks
Cars
Airlines
Private military companies -weapons manufacturing, contractors, etc
Big Pharma (how much research is done by public universities and profited from by large corporations?)
Favorable tax conditions for huge corporations across the board
Favorable trade conditions for huge corporations across the board

And so on...

We just call it by a different name and here it looks on the surface like the corporations control the politicians rather than the other way around. The relationship is quite similar though.

Funny too, that most of the things listed above arguably shouldn't be for-profit things at all - health care and medicine, transportation, food supply, yet we subsidize things so that people get less for more money (plus tax, plus taxes)so someone gets a big profit.

I'm not sure I understand your point, unless you're just being naive about the way things work here.

Regardless, we've gotten totally off track from the point I was making from the get-go which is that scapegoating the Chinese doesn't change the fact that our companies choose to have things manufactured there.

[Cessna Invesco Palin]

18. No, that's not how it works.

In a case like this it is almost certain that the mechanical design of the product came from Graco itself. It would be highly unusual for a company to subcontract that kind of high-level mechanical design - especially on this type of product. And even if they did chose to do so, they would still be responsible for testing and approving the contractor's design, obtaining the relevant customer safety certifications, and complying with any other relevant federal laws.

Now if during production a contractor decides to arbitrarily replace an approved high-quality part with a part of lower quality, or if the contractor surreptitiously changes the design for reasons of their own, then yes the contractor bears some responsibility. However, the responsibility it bears would be to Graco for violating its contract. Graco is still ultimately responsible for the products it sells, and if Graco is allowing inferior products onto the market because one of its CMs made a boo-boo, Graco is still responsible for the failure of quality control that allowed the product onto the market.

In this case it looks very clear that the design itself is at fault, and there is really no question that the responsibility here is Graco's, not their CMs'.

[virgogal]

7. I'm old. I go way back to when nothing was made in China and

everything was made in the USA by people receiving a living wage.

Products lasted for years and there were very few recalls. The US companies designed and provided the specs then too.

Shoddy workmanship is shoddy workmanship.

[Cal Carpenter]

13. A couple of points

(preface - I'm no spring chicken)

1-Scapegoating China for it's crappy quality standards doesn't help make the crappy products stop. Not saying there's no value in reminiscing 'bout the good old days...but scapegoating doesn't solve the problem.

2-If US companies had those products made here right now they'd still probably be crappy, and wages would be low, because it's all about the profit margin.

[Cessna Invesco Palin]

16. You mean back in the days when we used asbestos for insulation and lead paint on interior walls?

There are several reasons why there are more product recalls now than there were in the past. One is that there are simply more products in a particular category (think cars) and more categories of products (think consumer electronics) than there were before.

The second and more relevant is that there are a lot more safety standards now than there were historically. Up until the early seventies, the Consumer Product Safety Commission didn't even exist. Violations of CPSC regulations account for an enormous number of these recalls. It has very little to do with shoddy workmanship.

[virgogal]

21. Those days certainly weren't perfect but I knew that if I bought

a toaster or a washing machine it would last about 15 years,even with heavy usage (I had 6 kids)

Not anymore.

[Cessna Invesco Palin]

22. You can still buy toasters that will last that long.

You just can't buy them for ten bucks. Of course, back in the day you couldn't buy a toaster that would last fifteen years for the equivalent of ten bucks either.

[virgogal]

26. I have a Krups that I bought at Bloomingdales about 12 years ago

but the family is long gone so it isn't used much,therefore I can't compare it to the old original (made in USA) Toastmaster.

I won't even look at anything made by Black and Decker----a once fine brand.

Charge me more but give me quality----I'll save money in the end.

[Canuckistanian]

30. I remember Ming pottery as the major import from China

Now, it's exploding battery packs and poisonous pet food.

[Cessna Invesco Palin]

31. I know, it's like you can't even walk down the street...

...without being blown up by Chinese batteries or watching animals die from Chinese pet food.

[Canuckistanian]

32. LOL

You're funny. I like you.

[RaleighNCDUer]

9. Yeah, but DAMN -

I remember when the US used to make its OWN defective merchandise.

[Canuckistanian]

29. Good thing the babies didn't suck on the lead-filled paint

Or licked the 85% cadmium frame. Now that would be bad.

[SoCalDem]

2. I cannot believe how complicated these things have become

My kids' strollers were so unsophisticated, but at least they were easy to use and no one got hurt..

Our favorite was the first Umbroller Stroller they came out with.. We wore that thing OUT !

The original was little more than some wheels, a sling made from lawnchair webbing material, & some aluminum tubing.. I think we paid $15 ..and used that silly thing for 5 years & 3 kids)..

[lame54]

5. 3 kids and 30 fingers

[hlthe2b]

8. Amazing, isn't it... My grandmother used the same crib...

for her youngest child and each of her grandchildren when they came to visit. I remember looking at the design of it, which seemed so simple, yet so sensible. No way for a child to get his/her head stuck between the rails, rubber overlay on those rails that might result in striking, taking the child in and out. Not fancy... no designer touches but common sense design.

Frankly the new strollers--especially those SUV sized "jogging" models that make me incredulous when I see being taken into narrow aisles of stores (or wielded like weapons towards others walking the malls), do make me wonder where we are headed with all of this. Those simple little umbrella strollers were compact, quick to put up, and safe, it would seem.

[Robb]

10. To be fair, almost anything is "safe"

...when there's a parent around watching. Plastic bags are a great example -- they're fun to play with, they make a crinkly sound babies love. Supervised, they're a great development toy. Unsupervised, babies die.

The new baby stuff seems to be designed around the notion that the child must be able to survive while mom and dad are in the next room drinking heavily. :shrug:

[SoCalDem]

12. or for use at daycare where strangers are "tending"

other people's kids..

Many days my babies took naps on a blanket on the living room floor, because that's where they fell asleep...and our "bassinet" for our newest one? Rubbermaid clothesbasket on a small table next to our bed :) Grandma had a hissyfit when she saw that :rofl:

[Cessna Invesco Palin]

20. Nobody wants to get sued.

That's why every damn product in the universe that isn't specifically a toy for infants has a "NOT FOR UNSUPERVISED USE BY CHILDREN" label on it.

[SoCalDem]

11. Handmade cribs used to use a woman's fist as the spacer

for the vertical slats..

We used a porta-crib for our youngest for MONTHS..12-month-apart babies are so much fun (but a logistical nightmare).. we also only had one high-chair (bought at a yard sale for $10)

our baby stuff was all 2nd hand ...except for the crib mattress, which was new.

Our favorite ever baby gizmo? Johnny-Jump-Up !!! Best $8 ever spent :)

[dajoki]

23. My kids loved and my grandkids love "johnny jump up" n/t

[left is right]

14. I have one of those SUV jogging strollers for my grandson

It is admittedly too big and too heavy; however, one day a week rain or shine my family's scheduling conflicts require that he and I walk home from the daycare. It is a 1.2 mile walk and this extreme stroller knocks 10 minutes off the walk. With one of the umbrella type strollers we could catch a bus but we would have to walk .3 miles in the wrong direction to catch it and wait over a half hour.

[hlthe2b]

15. But, you are using it as intended... outside for walking & running..

I have no problem with that.

But to load the gargantuan stroller (and the double seat versions are even more incredible) to take into a tiny crowded shop, much less inside a mall, oblivious to the people one nearly runs over is a problem. They weren't designed for that... Some of the malls are wising up and requiring these to be "checked in at the door" in exchange for a small compact stroller (or umbrella-type) that they lend out. I hope it sets a trend.

[Cessna Invesco Palin]

19. Heh. You no longer buy a stroller. You buy a "child transportation system."

Some of the geegaws are quite silly, but some of it can be quite useful - the car seats that snap perfectly into the stroller base are a good example.

[Lance_Boyle]

17. Pretty sure folding metal hinges were no safer in the 50s and 60s

but we had to use rotary phones back then, so the problems went largely underreported.