A fight to make window blinds safer for children is growing more contentious after manufacturers have ignored federal demands to eliminate exposed cords on window blinds and shades.
The manufacturers, who set standards for their own products, are adopting less stringent rules that safety advocates say won't reduce injuries or deaths.
"The industry is clinging to the status quo and is refusing to address this very dire safety issue," said Rachel Weintraub, director of product safety with the nonprofit Consumer Federation of America and a member of a task force drafting the new standards. "As frustrating as it has been, it is even more tragic."
About one child each month strangles to death on cords of a window blind or shade, according to U.S. regulators. Children can get caught in the cords that hold the blinds together or the cords that are used to pull blinds up and down.
Last summer, safety regulators in the U.S., Canada and Europe told the window covering industry to enact product standards that would eliminate strangulation hazards.
Many manufacturers say it isn't feasible to rid window blinds of accessible cords and think it is impractical to eliminate all risk for any product.
"There's common sense, and then there's over-regulation," said Edward Krenik, a lobbyist for the Window Covering Manufacturers Association.
Inez Tenenbaum, chairman of the U.S. Consumer Product Safety Commission, said the proposed standard from the task force "poses too much risk to the safety of children." If the standard isn't strengthened, she said the agency could be forced to pass mandatory standards. But doing so could take years.
Safety advocates and regulators want to rid blinds of cords that children can wrap around their necks, including long cords used to pull blinds up and down.
More than 200 children in the U.S. have died in the last two decades from being strangled in window cord-related accidents with blinds and shades, according to the federal safety agency. The annual rate has remained steady, the commission said.
The disagreement over blinds safety standards centers on tweaks suggested by the industry that advocates and regulators say don't eliminate the strangulation hazard.
Reducing the hazard
One example is what is known as tie-down or tension devices. The pieces, sometimes made of plastic, fasten to the end of a looped cord that pulls blinds or shades up and down.
The device is supposed to be screwed into the wall or windowsill to hold the cord taut. The blinds can then be moved up and down on a sort of pulley system.
In theory, the taut cord reduces the risk that a child can wrap it around his or her neck. But safety advocates and regulators do not think those devices are safe because they break easily and often aren't installed correctly.
The industry says that under the new standard, tension devices would have to pass durability tests. Also, they can be made so that if they're not installed correctly, blinds won't work properly.
Another proposal would require that a warning label on product packaging say: "For child safety, consider cordless alternatives or products with accessible cords."
But safety advocates say the warning doesn't explicitly tell parents not to use the products if children are in the home.
