Early this evening, we concluded two days of dialogue with officials at Health Canada by securing a formal confirmation that the agency will release detailed information from the recently published study of Bisphenol-A migration in non-polycarbonate and "BPA-Free" plastic baby bottles, including the specific amounts detected by the testing matched to the specific brands of bottles tested.

We called for this move last week in an initial analysis of the study, and applaud Health Canada's decision.

To date, Health Canada has declined to release anything beyond the average levels of BPA migration for the entire set of non-polycarbonate bottles. The agency then released additional correspondence to a Canadian news agency under an Access to Information request and blacked out the names of two bottles being discussed for their surprisingly high levels of BPA.

Z Recommends has previously broken news regarding the presence of BPA in non-polycarbonate plastics, including feeding utensils and sippy cups, and maintains the ZRecs Guide to Safer Children's Products, an extensive directory of information collected from well-placed company representatives regarding BPA and other chemicals of concern in children's products.

The agency did not name a date for the release of this information, but a Friday release seems likely.

That won't be the end of this story, by a long shot. We're looking forward to continuing to contribute to the discussion and debate regarding what Health Canada's findings mean, and will save most of our thoughts until we can see how the data shakes out. Suffice to say for now that the fallout will be significant, there will be several major interest groups involved (beyond any number of bottle companies and government scientists), and there may be fewer companies claiming to make BPA-free bottles - or making bottles at all - when this is all over.

We contacted the great folks at child safety advocacy group Kids In Danger about the voluntary ban on drop-side cribs that was approved by the industry standards group ASTM in the spring. The nonprofit had a representative on the ASTM committee that made the decision, and we asked KID why a standard couldn't have been developed that made drop-side crib designs safer. According to KID's Nancy A. Cowles, they worked to get approval of a workable standard that would have improved drop-side cribs rather than banning them outright. In response to our query, Cowles wrote:

We believe the UL [Underwriters Laboratories] standard, developed with input from many sources and including rigorous tests, would go far in making cribs on the market - including drop side cribs - safer. UL’s ‘racking’ test would simulate the use a crib gets in real life and be more likely to identify durability issues and hardware failures. However, since publishing the standard, UL has been unable to get any manufacturer to agree to test their cribs using this stringent standard. So we supported the move to require four fixed sides at the last ASTM meeting because without rigorous testing that the manufacturers seem unwilling to undergo, it is the best way to keep babies safe in cribs.

You can return to our previous posts on the drop-side ban to read comments from parents who do or don't see the need for them (so let's not rehash that here!), or to get the full backstory. But I'd like to reprint a bit of what we said there, in light of the very helpful information from the experts at Kids In Danger.

In our March 21 post "The Drop-Side Crib Ban: Is There More Than Meets The Eye?" we wrote:

[T]he proposal of an outright elimination of drop-side cribs from ASTM standards - essentially saying that no drop-side crib design can meet a reputable safety standard - has us scratching our heads. There seem to be some unanswered questions in the dance ASTM and the CPSC are doing on this issue.

Is the problem some inherent flaw in drop side designs generally, as the ASTM's move implies, or cheap drop sides with plastic hardware, as the CPSC's letters suggest?

If the issue is one of quality, what does it say about the members of the ASTM F15.18 committee - which likely includes representatives from every company with an interest in infant cribs, i.e. everyone who makes them - that they would prefer an outright ban on the design than mandated quality improvements?

What sort of benefits might accrue to manufacturers who rely on the low end of the market to ban designs that can only be produced well at a higher cost? In other words, if higher standards for drop sides required more expensive parts and better design, would manufacturers who relied on a high volume of cheap cribs be put at a competitive disadvantage? Could these manufacturers, voting as a bloc, make a tactical decision to eliminate this portion of the market rather than abandon it to their higher-quality competitors?

Case closed.

The strangulation death of an infant in a "Sesame Beginnings" Travel Play Yard led the privately-held baby products giant Kolcraft, which brings in estimated revenues of $33 million a year, to recall nearly half a million play yards under several brands in September 2007.

As it turns out, however, a changing table with a dangling strap wasn't all that was wrong with Kolcraft's playpens. Three hundred and twenty-seven failure reports and 21 injuries later, the CPSC has issued a recall of 984,000 Kolcraft play yards due to a failure of its side wall to latch, causing it to collapse when leaned on by a child inside. This near-million-unit recall includes those previously recalled for the strangulation hazard.

The remedy offered by Kolcraft for both the strangulation hazard and the newly announced fall hazard are repair kits. Kolcraft has a retrofit request form on their website, or you can call them at (888) 655-8484.

The difficulty of making recalls by companies like Kolcraft effective is that their products are marketed under so many different names - in this case, Kolcraft, Carter’s, Sesame Street, Jeep, Contours, Care Bear and Eric Carle. I encourage you to check not only your own play yard but those of other caregivers in your life, and send links to friends who have young children or are expecting.

Kolcraft's history with child safety is a checkered one. Its founder, Leo Koltun, made his name in the late 1940s by inventing the bumper pad, an innovation which probably made sense in an era before ASTM crib standards but have offered greater risks than benefits since the mid-1980s. (ZRecs advises against the use of crib and play yard bumpers, which have been identified as entrapment, suffocation, and possible SIDS hazards by the Journal of Pediatrics and many others.) The company has had several recalls since the CPSC began publishing recall information online, including a 1993 recall of Preskool-branded portable cribs due to a problem that sounds eerily similar to the one that triggered yesterday's recall: a collapsing side, which in that case created a "V"-shaped hinge that led to the entrapment and suffocation deaths of three infants in the four years it was on the market.

Below is a graphic showing all 19 of the Kolcraft play yard designs being recalled with this notice. You can see bigger images of each one in the CPSC's recall notice.


Recalled models:

• Kolcraft Travelin’ Tot


• Kolcraft Travelin’ Tot LTD


• Kolcraft Travelin’ Tot 2-in-1


• Kolcraft Travelin’ Tot 3-in-1


• Kolcraft Travelin’ Tot 4-in-1


• Carter’s Lennon Travelin’ Tot


• EMU Carter’s Travelin’ Tot


• Carter’s Travelin’ Tot


• “Sesame Beginnings” 2-in-1 Play Yard


• Sesame Travelin’ Tot VT


• Jeep Sahara, Jeep Sahara SE Play Yard


• Jeep Sahara Limited Play Yard


• Jeep Sahara XT Play Yard


• Jeep Sahara Limited SE Play Yard


• Jeep Sahara Limited XT Play Yard


• Contours 2-in-1 Travel Playyard


• Contours 3-in-1 Play Yard


• Contours Deluxe Play Yard


• Contours Travel Play Yard


• Care Bear Play Yard


• Eric Carle Play Yard with Activity Gym

Model numbers: 18709-BH, 18709T-BH, 18709T-DV, 18709-NF, 18709T-NF, 18710-BE, 18711T-BD, 18711T-BE, 18713T-LB, 18714T-WD, 18714-WD, 18724T-SQ, 18725-CG, 18725T-FF, 18730T-BZ, 18730T-HJ,18731- DV, 18731T-BZ, 18733-CU, 18733T-CU, 18734T-DV, 18744-BL, 18751T-BZ, 18751T-CU,18751-DV,18751T-DV, 18910-MQ, 18910T-EB, 18910T-LN,18920D-OW,18920-OW, 18925-GS, 18925-LA, 18931-EZ, 18931T-DV, 18931T-PV, 18933T-CU, 18934-SW, 18934-DV, 18935T-UT, 18935-CH, 18942-EC, 18945T-CT, 18945T-ER, 18946-AR, 18950-GV, 18950T-GV, 18951T-DV, 18951T-GS, 18951T-MO,18960-KK, 18960T-PP, 18961-AR, 18961T-AR, 18961-CT, 18961T-CT, 18961-PP, 18961T-GF, 18961T-RV, 18962-AX, 18962T-FZ, 18962-OQ, 18962T-ZT, KP001-BND, KP013-BPA, KP013-HGF, KP013-JFR, KP013-NRB, KP013-PPL, KP014-JGY, KP015-BPA, KP015-JFR, KP016-OW, KP027-JGX, 18740-UE, 18740T-UE, 18736T-LJ, 18737-LJ, 18737T-LJ, 18726-KA, 18726T-HM, 22361-VT, SP001-SBK, SP004-SBK, 55200-JC, 55220-JC, 55225-JC, 55225T-JC, 55235-JC, 55237-JQ, 55237T-JQ, 55237-XC, 55237-XV, 55237T-XB, 55770-XA, 55770-XI, 55772-XE, 55773-XY, JP002-XSP, 18604-OC, ZP001-MON, ZP001-MYS, ZP003-MAL, ZP004-MAL, 18960-KK, 18763-EK, 18763T-EK