Safety agency schedules recall effectiveness meeting May 15.

While CPSC recently settled the question of whether to mandate product registration cards as a means to improve recall effectiveness, the agency has now decided to conduct more studies on other means of promoting the rate of recall response.

In March, Commissioners voted 2-1 finally to deny a petition to require the product registration cards for children's products. (5)

The issue now is how to motivate consumers to pay more attention to product recalls and to respond in ways that will help prevent deaths and injuries from defective products.

CPSC says its first meeting on the matter, scheduled for May 15, 2003 at CPSC Headquarters in Bethesda, Maryland, is the beginning of the first of several such meetings.

According to CPSC, "the purpose is to find new ideas on how CPSC can better motivate consumers to respond to product safety recalls."

The meeting will begin at 9 am and close at 3:30 p.m. The morning session will feature panelists with backgrounds in marketing and advertising and from academia. The afternoon session is planned as an opportunity for audience input.

CPSC hopes to determine which specific recall programs have worked and which have not. The critical question is how to measure whether the recall efforts spurred consumers to act.

For further information on the meeting, contact Celestine Kiss or Nancy Sachs at CPSC, at [phone] or [phone].

(5) See, CPSC Monitor, March 2003, Vol. 8, Issue 3, "CPSC Denies Petition to Require Product Registration Cards."