[Congressional Record Volume 150, Number 3 (Thursday, January 22, 2004)]
[Senate]
[Page S186]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]

      By Mrs. FEINSTEIN (for herself and Mr. Fitzgerald):
  S. 2016. A bill to provide for infant crib safety, and for other 
purposes; to the Committee on Commerce, Science, and Transportation.
  Mrs. FEINSTEIN. Mr. President. I rise along with Senator Fitzgerald 
to reintroduce the Infant Crib Safety Act. This legislation is designed 
to reduce injuries and deaths that come from infant crib accidents.
  Earch year, about 11,500 children ages 2 and under are injured in 
cribs seriously enough to require hospital treatment. Approximately, 26 
children die a year from such injuries, the highest number of deaths 
caused by nursery-related products.
  In fact, according to the Consumer Product Safety Commission, cribs 
cause more deaths than all other nursery items combined.
  While strict guidelines exist on the manufacture of and sale of new 
cribs, there are millions of cribs sold throughout the U.S. in 
``secondary markets'' such as thrift stores and resale furniture 
stores.
  As many as half of the 4 million infants born in this country each 
year are placed in second hand cribs. Many of these used cribs are 
unsafe and should be taken off the market and either repaired or 
destroyed.
  These used cribs can have dangerous features such as protruding 
corner post extensions, missing or broken parts, excessive slat width, 
poor fitting crib sheets, inadequate mattress supports, latches that do 
not prevent unintentional collapse of the crib. Cribs built before 1978 
have a higher lead content than current regulations allow.
  Let me give you some of the real life examples of the tragedies 
caused by unsafe cribs.
  At the age of 23 months, Danny Lineweaver was injured during an 
attempt to climb out of his crib. Danny caught his shirt on a 
decorative knob on the cornerpost of his crib and hanged himself. 
Though his mother was able to perform CPR the moment she found him, 
Danny lived in a semi-comatose state for 9 years and died in 1993.
  In another case, Luke Torgerson, a 13-month-old infant, died due to 
an unsafe crib at this daycare facility in Minnesota.
  Parents should have confidence that a crib is a safe place to leave 
an infant. The design and construction of a baby crib must ensure that 
it is safe to leave an infant while sleeping.
  Since cribs are the only juvenile product manufactured expressly for 
leaving a child unattended, every necessary measure should be taken to 
ensure that the crib is the safest possible environment.
  The Infant Crib Safety Act keeps unsafe secondhand or hand-me-down 
cribs out of the stream of commerce by prohibiting their sale, resale, 
lease, and use in lodging facilities or day care centers.
  This bill does not apply to individuals who provide cribs to their 
friends, or to any type of individual sale of a crib such as at a 
garage sale. The bill focuses on commercial users. And currently, 
controls over cribs provided by transient public lodging establishments 
or sold at thrift stores are non-existent.
  Studies have shown that hotels and motels continue to use unsafe 
cribs and thrift stores continue to sell them. In the year 2000, the 
National Safe Kids Campaign did an investigation of cribs used by 
hotels and motels. Spot checks by the Campaign identified unsafe cribs 
in 80 percent of the cribs visited.
  A year earlier, the Consumer Product Safety Commission found that 12 
percent of the cribs sold in a survey of thrift stores did not meet 
existing voluntary industry or Federal safety standards for new cribs.
  Comparable legislation has already been adopted by a number of 
States. Eleven States including Arizona, Arkansas, California, 
Colorado, Illinois, Louisiana, Michigan, Oregon, Pennsylvania, Vermont, 
and Washington have already passed legislation prohibiting the sale of 
cribs that do not meet current safety standards.
  There is no good reason why cribs in all 50 States should not meet 
these reasonable safety standards.
  The legislation is supported by the Consumer Federation of America 
and the Danny Foundation.
  I look forward to working with my Senate colleagues to turn this 
common-sense legislation into law.
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