In today's Newsday, we read "Nassau lawmakers vote to ban drop side cribs", December 21, 2009 by Celeste Hadrick. This article describes a terrible example of government by hysteria.
The URL for this article is:
http://www.newsday.com/long-island/nassau/nassau-lawmakers-vote-to-ban-drop-side-cribs-1.1665846
We have the horror of eleven babies who died in drop side crib accidents arising from breakage of life-critical parts that were made of plastic. Such parts should have been made of nothing less sturdy than galvanized steel, but because of "value engineering" decisions, those parts were inadquate to their purposes and babies died.
That need NOT have happened.
Banning all drop side cribs in response to failures of plastic parts is like banning automobile tires after some unscrupulous company made and sold automobile tires made out of play-doh. The unwise use of a wrong material does not justify a ban of the product.
The present US population has now risen to 300 milliion of whom hundreds of millions have been raised in drop side cribs, myself included and I am of retirement age. The drop side crib design has been proven over many decades of use while alternative designs may present their own hazards.
Tragedies are powerful motivators and also powerful drivers of hysteria. Unfortunately, hysteria and the use of good judgment rarely coincide. The drops side crib ban is an example of that sad fact.
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