Report Shows Injuries from Children's Products Down

Utilizing Social Media

A trend that hasn't improved is getting recalled items out of homes with 80 percent of those items unaccounted for and, in many instances, still in use. Most manufacturers are not using a valuable asset to get the word out about their recalls—social media.

Used for marketing purposes, these sites could have a big impact on spreading the word about their own recalls, but many are not. According to the study, 57 companies who recalled a product in 2014 had an active Facebook account and 57 had an active Twitter account. Only 13 of those companies on Facebook (23 percent) and 12 companies on Twitter (32 percent) posted about their recalled product. However, three of those who posted were ambiguous in tone, according to the report.

“I think some of them are certainly putting far more effort into sales than they are on the recall side. We definitely see that,” Elliot Kaye, U.S. Consumer Product Safety Commission chairman, told ABC News, which reported the government considers a 20 percent recovery as a "good" recall. “What we see is there’s a quick hit on the recall side, it’s relatively narrow. They don’t use all their resources. They don’t use all their creativity. They don’t use all their social media channels to be able to do this, and that’s what we’re asking for.”

Recall Effectiveness

Starting with last year's report, KID attempted to examine effectiveness of the recalls in the prior year. With laws that obligate the CPSC to contact the manufacturer to determine what should and should not be provided in Freedom of Information Act requests, some important information sometimes is redacted. There also were a few mathematically impossible reports, such as some with data showing more than 100 percent of product being destroyed or corrected. About 40 percent of reports were missing or nonexistent.