My Nonprofit Reviews

When toddler Danny Keysar got killed by a Playskool portable crib in 1998, I was a marketing professor at Northwestern University. I'd studied and taught marketing for years, and therefore I knew a lot about how to get products onto the market and into consumers' homes. What I didn't know is what happens when a product proves fatal, and it's recalled. Danny's death prompted me to find out. It is an understatement to say that what I found was disturbing: a federal regulatory system that was underfunded and inept, a legal system that shielded manufacturers from paying for their horrific "mistakes," and consumers who had no idea that the brand name products they trusted - Playskool high chairs, Cosco cribs, Graco strollers, etc. - were inadequately tested and too often, unsafe. Unsafe children's products still make it to the market, but thanks to the tenacious work of Kids in Danger, Congress has passed laws that fill some (if not all) holes in the product safety net, federal regulators are doing a better job of policing the market and holding manufacturers accountable, and more consumers get the word when a product is recalled. Thank you, K.I.D.! Marla Felcher, Ph.D., author of It's No Accident

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