The biggest news coming out of the Consumer Product Safety Commission lately is Acting Chairwoman Ann Marie Buerkle’s decision to step down from her post when her term ends in October. Members of the Senate Commerce subcommittee on Manufacturing, Trade, and Consumer Protection seized on that announcement to grill Buerkle and her fellow commissioners about alleged lax CPSC regulation during a recent oversight hearing.
Continue ReadingWe’ve seen sweeping regulatory changes before, but the FDA’s anticipated regulation of cannabis and CBD-infused products – a market expected to reach more than $20B globally by 2024 – promises to pose significant and unprecedented challenges to food and cosmetics manufacturers already using cannabidiol as an ingredient.
Continue ReadingWYou identified a potential safety issue with your product and conducted an investigation. You worked closely with your regulator to plan for and execute a recall. Your team worked tirelessly to communicate with consumers and fix the issue. Then the regulator closed the recall. And you moved on. Or so you thought. The National Highway Transportation Safety Administration recently launched separate investigations into whether two GM recalls conducted years ago were inadequate.
Continue ReadingFake product recalls – unlike other claims of so-called “fake news” – are exceedingly rare. But they are not without precedence. Just last year, a car dealership in Washington, D.C., was heavily fined by the Federal Trade Commission for sending fake recall warnings to car owners in the hopes of drumming up more business for the dealership’s repair shop. The dealership sent out bright red mailers that mimicked official recall notices from the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration (NHTSA).
Continue ReadingACConventional wisdom suggests that automation and robotics should make products safer by removing the potential for human error adding more precision to production. But some industries are finding that automation is a double-edged sword. The food industry, in particular, has experienced a string of product recalls whose origins can be traced back to automated systems. Take factory farming, for example. Food Quality & Safety Magazine
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