Originally Posted: November 17, 2000

Published in February 2001 by Common Courage Press, It's No Accident: How The Infant Products Industry Compromises Baby Safety serves as a general warning about baby products and leads the reader to information about specific products and manufacturers. Author Marla Felcher identifies manufacturers whose products have been associated with injury and death and who attempted to cover up the evidence. She also recounts case histories of children injured or killed by defective products.

It's No Accident dicusses:

• Inadequately tested baby products
• Marketing ploys used by manufacturers to lull parents into a false sense of security about products they purchase
• Recall processes that fail to alert consumers about product dangers, and
• Heartless defenses put up by manufacturers when they are sued.

The book also argues that the U.S. Consumer Product Safety Commission's inadequate regulatory systems allow manufacturers to keep consumers in the dark about product dangers that can lead to serious injury and death. Those inadequate systems were built into its mandate by federal legislators determined to deny it effective regulatory power.

An entire chapter is devoted to the industry's use of court-sanctioned secrecy agreements to keep its settlements out of sight of lawyers and journalists.

Marla Felcher earned a Ph. D. in marketing from Northwestern University in Evanston, Illinois, where she subsequently taught at the Kellogg Graduate School of Management and the Medill School of Journalism. She has worked in marketing for Gillette, The Talbots clothing chain, and as a consultant for M & M Mars and Ben & Jerry's. In addition to The Atlantic Monthly, her articles have appeared in Wildlife Conservation, Mother Jones and Child magazines.

Updated July 2004