Window Shades and Blinds Recalled amid Safety Review

WASHINGTON — The death of a toddler who strangled in a window shade cord spurred a huge recall Wednesday, even as the industry crafts a better standard to make window coverings in American homes safer for children.
The Consumer Product Safety Commission says Hanover Direct, of Weehawken, N.J., has agreed to recall about 495,000 roman shades and some 28,500 blinds. Hanover is the parent company for Domestications, The Company Store, and Company Kids.
CPSC says the 22-month-old boy in Cedar Falls, Iowa, became trapped in the pull cord of a roman shade in May. He was found hanging by his neck and was rescued by his father, but died later at a hospital.
The commission estimates that one child dies every month after strangling on the cords of blinds or roman shades.
Consumer safety groups have complained that the government and industry have been slow over the last two decades to cut child deaths from blinds. More recently, however, CPSC has stepped up its efforts to get safer window coverings on the market.
At a meeting of industry officials and consumer advocates at CPSC headquarters in Bethesda, Md., this week, the head of the commission urged manufacturers to move swiftly to approve new safety rules.
"Chart a new course today," said Chairman Inez Tenenbaum, "a course that promises to eliminate, not just mitigate, the risk of harm to children."
While there have been millions of blinds and shades recalled in the past several years, safety advocates say fatality rates haven't improved much and the process for moving safer designs to the market has been sluggish.
The problem is the cord on the blinds and shades that rolls them up and down. Young children can get tangled and trapped in the cords, leading to injuries and deaths. Since 1990, CPSC estimates that nearly 250 infants and young children have died from accidentally strangling on window cords.
Ralph Vasami, executive director of the Window Covering Manufacturers Association, says blinds and shades can be used by most people with no problem at all. "But there is a hidden risk to children," he said in an interview.
Vasami says manufacturers are pressing ahead to revise the current voluntary safety rules on the books, standards developed by industry. He expects to have new rules ready for a vote by next October.
Current standards for roman shades, Vasami says, call for them to be cordless; have cords that are inaccessible to children; or if the cord is in reach of a child, then it cannot be able to form a hazardous loop that could trap a child's head. That standard would likely serve as a model and be expanded to cover blinds in the new writing of standards underway.
Wednesday's recall involving Hanover is an expansion of a previous recall from October 2009 of about 90,000 roman shades. Thousands more roman shades as well as roller and roll-up blinds are now being called back. The products were sold through the company nationwide from January 1996 through October 2009.
Consumers can contact the firm at 800-453-1106 or http://www.domestications.com and http://www.hanoverdirect.com for more information.