 Good morning everyone and welcome to a truly rainy day I'm reminded of that WC Fields movie where he kept saying ain't it fit night out for man or beast and it feels like it this morning. This morning CPSC staff will brief the commission regarding a draft notice of proposed rulemaking for frame child carriers. This draft notice arises under section 104 of the Consumer Product Safety Improvement Act also known as the Danny K's Our Child Product Safety Notification Act or to me Danny's Law. The act honors Danny's a child who died in an infant product that had been the subject of two recalls but somehow the product still remained on the market. Danny's name reminds us how precious human life is and how dedicated we must be to safeguard it to the greatest extent possible. Section 104 requires the CPSC to promulgate rules for durable infant or toddler products and specifically refers to infant carriers as one of the products for which a rule is required. And one of the important elements of section 104 rules is their reliance on voluntary standards as a foundation for these safety rules. In this case the voluntary standard is an ASTM standard F2549-14 which is titled Standard Consumer Safety Specification for Frame Child Carriers. And the definition is a product normally of sewn fabric construction on a tubular metal or other frame which is designed to carry a child in an upright position on the back of a caregiver. That helps explain the product to an extent but if like me you still find yourself baffled about the difference between a handheld carrier, a toddler carrier and a frame child carrier fortunately staff is going to explain that. In passing I did note that the briefing package mentions that this product closely resembles hiking and mountaineering backpacks but then hastens to add that the backpacks are not intended to be used for transporting a child. As I understand we have information about 47 incidents over the past 10 years with most injuries resulting from falls from the frame child carrier. Again staff is going to walk us through the injury data to help us understand the degree of danger associated with this product. We'll now hear from staff on the frame child carrier draft NPR both as to the ASTM voluntary standard and as to the modification to the standard that the staff proposes. The staff who will brief us are Patricia Edwards from EXHR and Dave DiMatteo from the General Counsel's Office so I turn it over to you and good morning to you. Good morning Chairman Adler, Commissioners Berkel and Robinson I'm Dave DiMatteo the Office of the General Counsel and with me is Petty Edwards from the Directorate of Engineering Sciences as you noted and this morning we will be doing a briefing on the safety standard for frame child carriers and I will start off an overview of the law. Section 104B of the CPSIA the Consumer Product Safety Improvement Act is what that stands for basically requires the Commission to issue consumer product safety standards for durable infant or toddler products and there's a consultation requirement that requires us to consult with the appropriate stakeholders before we promulgate rules and we're to follow the section 553 informal rulemaking process that's laid out in the ABA and when we do these standards the standards are supposed to be substantially the same as the voluntary standard or more stringent if the Commission determines that more stringent standards would further reduce the risk of injuries so to associate it with such products and a durable infant or toddler product is defined as a durable product intended for use or they may be reasonably expected to be used by children under the age of five years and different carriers as the chairman noted is identified in the statutes of durable infant product and today the draft proposed rule incorporate is proposing to incorporate before you is proposing to incorporate by reference voluntary standard ASTM F 25 49-14 standard consumer safety specification for frame child carriers carriers with one modification to strengthen the standard and with that I'll turn it over to Patty to discuss the details of the proposed rule thank you Dave good morning chairman Adler commissioners Birkel and Robinson on the current slide we can see examples of two frame carriers in use and we have a few other carriers here today in front of you that will be used for demonstration purposes the ASTM standard F 25 49 defines a product as follows a frame child carrier is a product normally of sewn fabric construction on a tubular metal frame or other frame which is designed to carry a child in an upright position on the back of a caregiver these products are designed to carry children who are old enough to sit upright unassisted and who weigh between 16 and 50 pounds as seen in the photos the carrier just is designed to be worn on the caregiver's back and suspended from both shoulders much like a backpack as the commission knows there are other ASTM standards that cover related products but they are not the subject of the standard we are discussing today two such examples are shown on the on the slide in front of you I would now like to review the incident data associated with frame carriers it is fortunate that the agency has not had any reported fatalities associated with this product in the search time period of the 47 reported incidents 33 resulted in injuries mostly due to falls from the product to summarize the incident data of the 47 incidents 29 of them are considered to be product related there are four hazard patterns associated with these 29 incidents as seen on the slide the other 18 incidents were equally divided as being non-product related or it is unknown as to whether or not they are product related let's now look at each of the four hazard patterns in a little bit more detail there are 11 incidents related to structural integrity these incidents involve component failure failures detachment of components stitching problems and things like that when looking at the details of these 11 incidents staff was able to determine that they all involved carriers that were made before the first publication of the ASTM standard in late 2006 stability is the second hazard pattern and these incidents pertain to carriers containing a child that were not being worn by the caregiver at the time of the incident for example a caregiver removes the occupied carrier from his or her back and places it upright on a table such as the one we've got demonstrated here and using the using the kickstand feature and then the carrier and the child both tip over because these incidents were all from nice data it is not known whether any of the carriers involved were actually manufactured after the ASTM standard was first published leg openings is another hazard pattern that resulted in injuries the scenario involves a child who is able to put both legs into one leg opening and either falls completely out of the carrier or gets trapped in the process of sliding out of the seven known incidents three are known to involve carriers that were made after the ASTM standard was first published last but not least are the incidents involving restraints we only have two reported incidents and both involve caregivers who were leaning over and the occupants came out through the top that somehow defeating their shoulder restraints unfortunately there was not enough information to determine whether or not there were really any issues involving the restraints themselves non-product related includes incidents dealing with the caregivers actions of putting a child into the carrier or removing them from the carrier which resulted in an injury it also includes incidents where the caregiver slipped or tripped while wearing the carrier and as mentioned earlier there were also nine incidents all of which were from nice data where staff could not determine whether or not they were product related there have been two compliance recalls since 2003 for frame carriers one involved the retention system specifically the shoulder straps were loosening on their own and the other involved missing fasteners for the frame these next several slides will discuss the ASTM voluntary standard for frame carriers we'll start with a history and then look at the current standard and its adequacy as it pertains to the hazard patterns we've seen in the data as they already mentioned the first standard was first published in late 2006 with the designation F 2549-06 it contains the general requirements listed on the slide which are also requirements found in most of the other ASTM juvenile standards the performance requirements in the standard covered hazards associated with the leg openings the product stability the retention system and the integrity of the handle in addition it has dynamic strength and static load requirements these address the hazards associated with structural integrity and as with other juvenile standards ASTM F 2549 also contains requirements for the marking and labeling of the product and for the instructional literature that accompanies the product ASTM F 2549 has been revised five times since its initial publication in 2006 the first revision contained new requirements one for flammability and the other for toys but since that time no new requirements have been added to the standard most of the changes in the subsequent versions dealt with revisions to existing requirements or they were editorial changes a change to the scope of the standard was made in 2013 this change increase the intended upper weight range of the product from 40 to 50 pounds to reflect what is currently being sold on the market in the current version of the standard the current version of the standard was approved in January of this year and it's designated F 2549-14 let's now consider the adequacy of the current version of the standard as reviewed earlier there were several leg opening incidents three of which involve carriers that were manufactured after the ASTM standard was first published this photo on the slide shows a cammy dummy acting as a child surrogate and demonstrates what can happen when a leg opening is large enough to allow a child to slide through it the ASTM standard has always had a leg opening requirement designed specifically to address the hazard and yet we had incidents with carriers that met the requirement as it was originally written in earlier versions of the standard the leg opening test was different than it is in the current version to conduct a test to conduct the leg opening test a test fear as seen here on the table in front of me is used this test fear is modeled from the hips or conference of the smallest child likely to use these carriers which is about a six month old but before actually conducting the test this stand the carrier must be adjusted the earlier versions of the standard require that the carrier be adjusted to fit the smallest user that's the wording from the standard there was no guidance given on how to make these adjustments thus for some carriers that have a lot of straps that simply meant tightening the straps down pretty much as far as they could go after adjusting the carrier then the test fear is placed inside the carrier and in where the occupant area is and the whole carrier is then tilted to its side if a sphere falls through the leg opening then it fails to test when test when staff tested a variety of carriers to the old leg opening requirements I just described they all passed even the carrier model involved in the incidents the staff work with the ASTM subcommittee group and developed a new test procedure that was more stringent the test procedure was adopted in the 2013 version of the standard and thus it is also in the current version in the new test procedure the pre-test adjustment is done differently the carriers are now adjusted around a Kami infant dummy and as you know Kami's size is based off of an average six month old child after the adjustments is made then the test fear is again placed inside and the carriers tilted just like before testing performed by staff is demonstrated in this slide note that the second photo shows the test fears falling out of the leg opening during the revised test therefore this frame carrier fails the revised leg opening test requirement at this time I'd like to ask Kevin Lee to come up and demonstrate the leg opening test on two carriers one that passes the requirement and one that fails as Patty said I will be demonstrating the leg opening tests for two frame carriers both of them have been already adjusted to fit a six month Kami so I'm doing it down here so it because the ball is going to fall out so I slowly rotated for five over five seconds and hold it for a minute as you can see I'm not going to do it for the whole minute because that's going to take up too much time now I'll perform it with one that fails I'm going to slowly rotate for five seconds and then hold if I can but it already fell out and then I can do it for the other side too that's it thank you Kevin so due to the recent changes in the leg opening test procedure that are now part of the current standard staff believes this hazard pattern is now being adequately addressed I'd now like to talk a bit about ASTM juvenile standards because this next topic can get confusing if you're not familiar with the format of the standards the meat of an ASTM juvenile standard is typically found in the requirements and test procedures sections there are many types of requirements there are marking labeling instructional literature requirements those are typically found in sections eight and nine of ASTM juvenile standards and there are general requirements typically found in section five general requirements are often just cut and pasted from one standard to the next because they apply to most of the juvenile's products and then there are there are the performance requirements which are found in section six performance requirements are particular for the specific product covered by the standard when you read the verbiage contained in the requirement whether it is a labeling labeling general performance requirement you are reading the criteria for what determines a pass or fail for that particular requirement for instance consider the leg opening requirement that I have up on the slide and the one that we just discussed in the standard the requirement is found in section six point one and it's basically states leg opening shall not permit the passage of the leg opening test sphere when tested in accordance with seven point one thus the pass fail criteria is simply that the sphere can't pass through the leg openings during the test and note that section six point one doesn't provide any details about the test besides telling you where to find it in section seven point one it is important to note that every test procedures all of those that are outlined in section seven of the standards must have a corresponding requirement it could be a general requirement or a performance requirement but all the test procedures need to be related to a requirement since the requirement is what tells the tester what constitutes a pass or a fail because without a corresponding requirement a test procedures like taking a test that never gets graded or evaluated I would now like to discuss a particular requirement in the standard section six point five that deals with the restraint systems on frame carriers and I would like to discuss its corresponding test procedure which can be found in seven point five the current slide paraphrases what is in both of these sections section six point five as written requires that carriers are designed with a restraint system that is attached to the product before a consumer actually purchases it this means that a consumer does not have to assemble install or attach to rest restraint system themselves it also dictates that all carriers that use a waste in crotch restraint system must design that system so that the crotch strap has to be used when the waste belt is being used section seven point five outlines three different tests that relate to the retention restraint system in the first test a specified force is applied to one of the restraints wherever it attaches to the carrier body in the second test the cami dummy is placed in the carrier and fully restrained and then a specified force is applied to one of her legs several times in the third test the carrier with cami still restrained inside is rotated in a big circle 360 degrees from front over back and side over side the photo on this slide shows 360 degree front over back rotation tests at the beginning when cami is upright in the carrier and again halfway through when care doing cami is upside down I'm going to invite Kevin Lee back up again to demonstrate this rotational test this frame carrier also has been fitted to the six month cami and I shall perform the retention test to hold it hold it for one second rotate it 90 degrees backwards another second back again again then again put it rotate on another axis and that's it please do not try this at home these are experienced professionals doing this test or with your own child now remember section six point five the requirement that we just reviewed for the retention system it's back up on the slide notice how there was no mention in six point five of what constitutes a pass-fail in doing the tests that are outlined in seven point five well staff notices of mission in the standard when we were putting together the briefing package and immediately brought it to the attention of the ASTM sub committee chairman in addition we consulted with independent test laboratories in an effort to develop a performance requirement that relates to the testing outlined in seven point five we developed a new subsection six point five point four and it says when tested in accordance with seven point five the restraint system and its closing means for example a buckle shall not break disengage or separate at any seam and all the fasteners shall not release or suffer damage that impairs the operation and function of the restraint system at the end of the test the cami dummy shall not be released fully or fall out of the carrier the wording was developed by reviewing several other standards that have similar requirements for their retention systems the wording showed on the slide was reviewed at the last ASTM meeting held three weeks ago and the subcommittee agreed at that time to send it out the ballot to be considered for the next revision at the standard but because it is not in the standard as of yet staff is recommending this word to be added as a modification to f 2549-14 for the proposed rule the next couple of slides reviews the small business impact currently staff is aware of 15 firms that supply frame child carriers to the US market market of them nine are considered small domestic firms of the nine five of them are likely to comply with the current ASTM standard two of which are manufacturers and three that are importers there is little or no economic impact expected for the firms who now comply with the ASTM standard of the four firms who do not comply who or who were not aware of the ASTM standard a significant economic impact cannot be ruled out and lastly we come to staff's recommendation staff is recommending that the commission publish an NPR that incorporates by reference the voluntary standard ASTM f 2549-14 standard consumer safety specification for frame child carriers with a modification that would add a pass fail criteria for the retention system performance requirement staff also is recommending an effective date of 180 days following the publication of the final rule thank you for your attention to this matter and before I turn it over to questions I'd like to personally thank our team who worked on this with me our technical lead as you met is Kevin Lee our economic expert is Dr. Jill Jenkins our epidemiologist is Rizana Chattery our human factors expert is Dr. Rana Basisana our health scientist is Stephanie Marquise and our compliance representatives is Julio Arvario lastly my legal counsel working alongside of me this hallway is Dave DiMatteo a big thank you to all of them for a job well done thank you and we join in that big thank you to all the staff and thank you for going through in particularly naming the staff we're going to have questions and as I understand the rule it's a 10 minute round for each person if you have additional questions will do additional 10 minute rounds and I want to thank you so much for the presentation Patty as usual it's terrific and I just want to nail down one point that I think I understood but let me see if I can repeat it with respect to 2549 dash 14 we are not actually adding a new test we're simply saying once you do the test here's how you interpret it here the pass-fail criteria am I correct correct we're not changing anything about the test itself so that there's no anybody who was complying with the 2013 version of it was running the test but they could stand back and see see we just ran the test and the cami fell out isn't that interesting but now when the cami falls out they say oops we flunk right correct thank you and I did want to ask one additional question just to pin down this thought you did explain it to me but I wanted to at least to have you explain it to the group at large when I look at the test criteria they say this is simple the new test criteria this is similar to the European standard and I wanted to know why you used the phrasing similar to the child restraint system in the European standard as opposed to saying identical to because we're always trying to harmonize standards so if you could explain why you chose that language I think that would help the testing outlined in the ES EN standard is is somewhat different it's it's conceptually the same they do the same sort of test but it's not word for word and they they might have different procedures and different ways that they actually evaluate but they're looking at the same thing they're doing a rotational test to make sure cami doesn't fall out they're doing tat tug testing and everything so we couldn't use their exact pass file fail criteria because it wouldn't match what was already the test procedure for the ASTM standard and one of the points you made to me when we were discussing is they use the metric system and we don't well yeah well they use it primarily and then they back it up with the English we use the English primarily and we back it up with the metric but but if I do understand correctly anybody running the test according to the ASTM standard would likely pass the European standard anybody running the European standard that passes would likely pass ours or the flunks would be the same correct that's why we consider them substantially similar well that's that's very gratifying I would like to ask Jill about a question on economic analysis if that's okay and this is just fact-finding that this is not in any way a criticism of what we've done but I did notice that there's something cited as the 1% of gross revenue threshold test and it says we typically do that but I racked my memory and I can't remember ever seeing that in a briefing package so we've always been using that to evaluate whether something was significant or not we added it for this particular draft at the request of OGC okay so that we've been using it but not necessarily stating explicitly in briefing packages that's correct and I guess my question is 1% of what is the is the test revenue revenue okay and is in other words revenue with respect to what are we saying 1% of revenue moving to the 2014 version of ASTM moving to the 2013 version of ASTM what what with respect to what I guess is 1% of gross revenue with respect to what the basically what we expect the impact on the firm to be relative to their revenue okay so that somebody who was complying with ASTM 2014 version is going to have added costs that exceed 1% of gross revenue because of that or is it because I guess my question is are they going to actually have additional manufacturing costs or is is the main added cost the testing and certification we don't expect that there would be any costs for firms that are compliant with the ASTM standard to come into compliance with what we are proposing the cost would be just testing okay I think that helps me understand it because when I was reading it I just said 1% of what then I'd understand 1% of gross revenue but 1% of gross revenue compared to what and so I think you've explained it and I appreciate that Commissioner Robinson questions thank you Mr. Chair as an avid outdoors person I see these backpack carriers as we call them all the time and I'm absolutely delighted that we are passing a mandatory standard to make these safer both for the children and the parents and grandparents usually who are carrying them on their backs I wonder is Edwards yesterday you demonstrated it for me but perhaps you'd like Mr. Lita demonstrate the stability of the of the carriers when you put them down because I know some of the incidents happened from the carrier being put down and the child falling out oh yeah Kevin if you want to come on up and grab the carrier with Kami in it yeah and if you can just you can put it on the table they have a they have most of these have an automatic kick kickstand feature which helps keep them stable on on nice flat surfaces and so forth and there is a stability requirement in the standard already that actually puts these on an inclined so an unstable environment and it's a loaded up Kami it's a Kami who's some been put on with a heavy vest and she weighs like 40 pounds and so forth and so they have to remain stable on on the inclined feature so that's that's basically the stability outline excellent that's that's terrific thank you so much I would just like to make a comment about this pass fail requirement that you that the staff has proposed adding and just say I heard this wonderful NPR presentation this morning on harmonization of standards but it related to automobiles and there was a discussion of harmonizing the standards between Europe and the US and they talked about everything from the difference in the way in the this section of a windshield that windshield wipers have to cover in Europe versus the US and then talked and then talked about how difficult it is to harmonize some of the standards because of just cultural differences for example in Europe pedestrians are safer with respect to automobiles but in the US passengers are safer so we know that there are these differences and we have so many discussions internally and externally about harmonizing standards and I'm delighted when we can find a way to do it that is actually adding to the safety with respect to our standards I would like to ask you Ms. Edwards you you said that the ASTM had put this out for ballot do you have an indication as to whether that is going to be passed by the ASTM they actually have not sent it out to ballot as of yet the decision to send it out to ballot was made at the recent meeting which was just earlier this month so I expect that I think they're I think ASTM is playing on sending out a ballot in early May so it should go on that and it's usually a 30 day as well as always a 30 day ballot period and then at the end we should know and do you have any reason for an informed opinion as to whether they're going to add that oh I absolutely I definitely think they will add it whether or not it's word for word everyone likes the wordsmith a little bit but I think the substance of it there's as far as I could tell there was absolutely no one in disagreement that it needs to be added to the standard. Excellent okay Dr. Jenkins I just have a quick question for you and that is you have you've gone through the analysis about the effect on different manufacturers but my question is whether you think the universe of these carriers will be significantly affected and or specifically decreased as a result of this proposed rulemaking. We do not believe so the one firm who indicated that they may drop out of the market from what they told me it doesn't sound like they have a significant market share so no we do not expect that. Thank you very much and thank you to all of you for the hard work on this and and to the ASTM participants as well but thank you to the staff I have nothing Commissioner Burkle. Thank you very much I really do not have any questions I just want to thank Patty and Dave and your entire team for the pre-brief and for all of your work on this project and just appreciate all your hard work thank you. I did listening to Commissioner Robinson in different cultural settings I was in China this past summer for the first time and what I quickly realized is that when I'm crossing the street and traffic wants to turn left I'm at risk they feel they have the right of way and it took two near misses for me to appreciate that and realize that so I think you make a really valid point I did just have one quick follow-up question Patty the kickstand automatic setup is not a mandatory requirement now but you'd said most of the manufacturers do that. Yeah of the units you see down here they are automatic. Very much appreciate that. Commissioner Robinson additional questions or comments. I have nothing further sorry I have nothing further only that this is obviously a notice of proposed rulemaking and I would certainly encourage anyone listening to this and anyone in the audience manufacturers, importers, retailers and certainly consumers to submit comments if you have any for us which we will definitely consider. Thanks so much. And I want to second that sentiment and once again we want to thank the terrific CPSC staff first of all for braving the elements and coming to the meeting but secondly for the terrific work you did on that thank you all so very much. This meeting is now adjourned.