Adam Bailey, a 7-year-old who died in March after getting entangled in window blind cords.
This spring SelectBlinds.com did something once unheard of in the window-covering industry: It stopped selling blinds and shades with pull cords.
Over the last 30 years, corded window coverings have killed or injured hundreds of children. But despite calls from safety experts, parent groups and others, manufacturers and retailers have continued to sell them — until recently, when a few companies started breaking ranks.
“I am very sorry we did not do it sooner,” Al Silverberg, chief executive officer of SelectBlinds.com, said of his online retail company’s decision to quit selling products with pull cords. Still, he said, “It is never too late to do the right thing.”
The changes have come as the Consumer Product Safety Commission, after years of inaction, is beginning a federal rule-making process that could require the industry to eliminate cord dangers. While those rules are being developed, agency officials have stepped up pressure to persuade some companies to halt sales of products with cords.
The firms that have acted to date account for a small fraction of industry sales, but officials said they consider the actions significant.
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Elliot Kaye, chairman of the CPSC, called the decision by SelectBlinds.com “a great step forward for safety,” saying the firm was “putting child safety first.”
The Phoenix-based company is believed to be the first custom window-covering distributor to sell only cordless products. Its decision was effective March 31.
In recent months, big box chains including Target and Ikea also have stopped selling corded blinds and shades. Lowe’s has promised to eliminate its corded products no later than 2018.
Death toll rises
As FairWarning has reported, more than 300 children, most of them under the age of two, have died from strangling on window cords over the last three decades, according to the CPSC. At least another 177 have been injured, including some who suffered permanent brain damage or quadriplegia requiring lifelong care and therapy, according to the nonprofit group Parents for Window Blind Safety.
Al Silverberg, chief executive officer of SelectBlinds.com.
The Window Covering Manufacturers Association, an industry trade group that has led a decades-long fight against a federal window-covering rule, declined comment on the trend.
As an alternative to federal action, the group is proposing changes in voluntary industry standards for manufacturing corded products, which already have been revised at least six times since officials began tracking cord deaths in the early 1980s.
The industry also is proposing new consumer education programs and new labeling – moves that, critics say, put the burden of keeping kids safe on parents and other consumers, and simply do not work.
Amid the maneuvering, young children continue to be killed. One of the most recent victims: Roselynn “Rosie” Mae Hanna, 3, of suburban Columbus, Ohio, who died on April 16. She had wandered into the living room of her home and wound up hanging herself on a mini-blind cord while her mother was sewing and watching her younger brother in another room.
Then, on May 25, a 2-year-old girl died after becoming entangled in the cord of a window blind in Oakland Park, Fla., near Fort Lauderdale. Sometimes children even several years older are killed after the cords get wrapped around their necks while they are playing with them.
Silverberg, the former CEO of Uniden America Corp., a cordless telephone manufacturer and distributor, joined SelectBlinds.com in 2005. He said he found it striking that kids were still being killed by products that were supposedly safe and meeting industry standards.
“We could not in good conscience continue to sell corded product,” Silverberg said, calling it “the only way you are going to eliminate any future tragedies.”
Going cordless
Silverberg started considering plans to go cordless four or five years ago, and he initially hoped to make the change without raising his company’s costs. The conversion to an all-cordless product line, however, wound up being more expensive than expected.
Elliot Kaye, chairman of the Consumer Product Safety Commission.
According to Silverberg, SelectBlinds.com is passing along some, but not all, of the expense to consumers in the form of higher prices. He said his profit margins overall are lower than when the company sold both corded and cordless products. Still, Silverberg said, “The industry can do it.”
Under federal law, the CPSC ordinarily is required to defer to industries that are developing standards voluntarily to fix products that harm consumers. Critics say the window-covering industry has exploited that fact to stave off agency action.
Kaye, who has made banning dangerous window coverings a priority, seems willing to give the industry one more chance to come up with an effective voluntary standard. A federal ban on corded products would likely trigger litigation and take years to go into effect.
In January, the Window Covering Manufacturers Association, or WCMA, proposed its “interim revision” to the voluntary industry standards for window coverings.
Under the proposal, distributors would have to include a part known as a “cleat” that consumers would install and use to tie cords up out of the reach of their children. The proposal would also have new labels placed on window coverings deemed “Safe for Kids.”
“They are just stalling the process again, and CPSC is doing nothing,” said Linda Kaiser, a St. Louis mother who heads Parents for Window Blind Safety. “What they are asking for is not going to save any kids’ lives. They are throwing cleats in the box and expecting consumers to deal with it.”
Linda Kaiser, head of Parents for Window Blind Safety.
“The only way to deal with these accidents is to get rid of the common denominator -– which are the hazardous pull cords on products,” said Kaiser, who founded her advocacy group after her daughter Cheyenne was killed in her crib in 2002. “Safety devices have failed parents. Safety education has failed parents. It’s time for the manufacturers to cut their cords for the sake of children.”
The Window Covering Safety Council, an industry-supported affiliate of the WCMA, launched an education program in November. It distributed posters that warn about the risks of blinds and shades with cords and urged parents to replace them. The posters were distributed to pediatrician offices near military base housing, where a number of children have died in recent years.
One of those children was Adam Bailey. Window blind cords are standard issue in military housing such as where Adam – a 7-year-old first grader who was the oldest of five children — lived with his parents at Fort Detrick in Maryland.
The Bailey family couldn’t be reached for comment, and Army investigators still are looking into the case. But as Jamara Bailey related the story to Kaiser, she had put the children down for the night on March 17 and was doing dishes and cleaning up. She heard footsteps and other noise from upstairs and went to investigate.
She discovered Adam and, Kaiser said, “she realized he was hanging. His feet were off the floor.” Adam was taken to a hospital, where he was pronounced dead.
Adam’s five-year-old brother, Jamara Bailey told Kaiser, was awake and witnessed the incident. According to Kaiser, the 5-year-old told his mother: “We were just playing, Mama.”
I have been trying to prevent unnecessary, and preventable infant and child strangulation deaths in blind and shade cords for more then 25 years, in 1999 I gave the U.S. Consumer Product Safety Commission, t he Window Covering Safety ,Council and the Window Covering Manufacturers 5, deadly infant and child strangulation traps in blind and shade cords, .along with 28 documented infant and child strangulation deaths and hangings that occurred from 1990 to the year 2000, these 28 strangulation deaths is only a sampling of the hundreds of deaths that occurred in these years. In 2002 I gave these entities patented solutions to these cord strangulation deaths. (no takers) . Between 2007 and 2010 I also offered these entities a ” Cord Safe Wand ” that is used to make blind and shade cord clutches infant and child strangulation proof..
The C.P.S. C. loved it ,said it was a great device. and signed a letter to me. ” WE Don’t Endorse Products ” . The C.P.S.C. protects the Window Covering Manufacturers, The Window Covering Safety Council and themselves. because
they are negligent and they are derelict. This is a U.S .Government agency and should be treated with jail time, for 44 years of dereliction of duty, the other entities should also be incarcerated for perpetuating many years of deceiving the
global public .with false information and knowing that cutting a single deadly loop cord strangulation trap and adding tassels to the two cut ends .doubles the infant and child strangulation traps.
.
Robert L Nevins retired N.Y. City Firefighter
Berenice,
They haven’t disappeared because they are also installed in people’s rental homes and apartments. My daughter Ayla died this past April from a window blind cord tied around a so called “safety cleat” that was installed by the property management company. Brand new blinds when we moved in a year ago! Yes, consumer education is important, but is it effective? I thought the cord was safely tied on the cleat, I also had no prior knowledge of “how” these things happen.
I have given all of the manufacturers solution s to infant and child strangulation deaths since 1998. I have recently (provisional patent 2010) patent granted 2014.
The Consumer Product Safety Commission gave my (Cord Safe Wand ) great marks then wrote on the evaluation “C.P.S.C. .does not endorse products ” .. Linda Kaiser
showed a prototype of my Infant and child strangulation proof wand at a Nov.4, 2010 meeting in which all of the Window Covering Mfrs and all of the C.P.S.C .involved parties
attended . All of these entities ignored the anti infant and child strangulation device.
Sometimes I do not know whether Linda Kaiser is for me or against me.. I believe if I had one C.P.S.C. employee with me Renae Rauschwalbe We could have stopped most or all of these baby deaths that occurred since 1996. As an example. see if your blinds have a small plastic doughnut one inch below the cord lock when the blind is fully open. these plastic doughnuts were originally one quarter inch round plastic beads with a cord hole in them . Between 1990 and 2000 36 of these beads could have prevented 18 reverse, pull cord,, infant and child blind cord strangulation deaths. As far as warning labels go babies cant read. If their attached for the parents then put the truth on the warning label “More then three Hundred Children have strangled to death in these blind cords
As for free cleats to wind the cord around., picture a mother with the infant or child .in one hand and standing winding the cord around the cleat 27 times with the other hand… .
So proud that Mr Silverberg got the important message about corded windows coverings. Great thing his company is doing and hope more will follow.
Adam was a great kid. So happy. So loving. A big heart. I only got to know him for a short time and I only wish I could have gotten to know him better. He had so much potential to make a positive impact on this world. I fell in love with his mother who raised him so I know the love that was instilled in him. A pure heart. Just like his mom. She is lost without him. Her little protector. He was such a great brother too. He loved his little brothers and sisters. Always looked after them. They too are lost without him. He was always smiling. That is all I see when I think of him. Being a little goof. It brings tears to my eyes knowing I won’t be able to see the happiness on his face again or to pick with him when I went to see him and his little brothers and sisters and mommy. The comments of some people to the news of his death and how it happened makes me sick to my stomach. How can people be so heartless. His mom is the best mom I have ever seen. She was always there for them night and day. He was her first born. Her pride and joy. Her little protecter. I was looking forward to winning him over to accepting me into his family. Approving me as a worthy man for his mom. I’ll never get that chance. I can only look forward to getting to know him through his mom. The love she has for him is like no other. That’s what I feel as she shares memories of him. I want the world to know that this can happen to even the most cautious parent. It can take only a few seconds. Please just be proactive and junk the cords. Please go cordless. Spread the word. This is real. Some blind companies say there are too few deaths from corded blinds to ban them but I say one is too many. i don’t care how much money it will cost to get rid of corded blinds. Enough is enough. All cordless blinds will save precious children’s lives. Go cordless.
I agree with Bernice. Education is required to make parents aware of the dangers – same as has been done with seat belts and cigarettes.
I have done some work as an investigator on window blind strangulation cases filed by plaintiff attorneys for well over a decade. Its rare to see a story on this topic, though the steady but small death rate would seem important enough to warrant more interest. It has always fascinated me how resistant people are to this particular topic. My job often entailed identifying, finding and contacting past owners or tenants of a particular house where a cord strangulation job occurred, in order to learn when the blinds were installed, who sold them and who made them — often enough there are no markings on them. And too often there was no sympathy and no cooperation for my research, a lack of sympathy and cooperation that suspiciously seemed to have some geographic nature. It is my feeling that politics has created an empowerment among a certain portion of the population to believe that we must, as a nation, endure a certain level of chaos, injury and dysfunction in the name of freedom and free markets. But we do endure all that, and we will always continue to do so. Yes, it is part of life, regardless of freedom and free markets. The point though is, if something can be fixed and thus save lives of precious children, why not? History shows tremendous resistance to seat belts and motorcycle helmets and a zillion other safety features that cost money and took effort. And yet, once in place, and looking backwards, everyone agrees, doing that was a good thing. Fixing window cords falls into that category of one tiny incremental step forward for safety, and yet, it is emblematic of a culture and a nation that believes that all lives matter, and that is a culture and a nation to be proud of.
It is also important to have campaigns for consumers/buyers. Why do parents and grand-parents buy these things ? if nobody bought them, they would disappear!!!