Furniture anchors not an easy fix as child tip over deaths persist
November 5, 2018, Consumer Reports
Each year furniture tip-overs cause thousands of injuries serious enough to send children to the emergency room. Since 2000, they’ve been linked with at least 206 deaths. Most of the victims were children younger than 6. Anchoring dressers to the wall is widely touted as the best preventive measure, short of the furniture industry consistently producing more stable dressers. But as Consumer Reports has uncovered during our ongoing investigation into dresser stability, furniture anchors are not a well-known or easy fix for the majority of consumers.
Report two house fires related to dehumidifiers
November 7, 2018, New Canaan Advertiser
New Canaan: A recent fire in this town was most likely the result of a malfunctioning dehumidifier that was subject to a recall, according to local Fire Marshal. The U.S. Consumer Product Safety Commission first issued the Gree Dehumidifier recall back in 2013 and subsequently updated it in 2016.
New resources for creating a safe sleep environment for baby
November 13, 2018, Vermont Business
Unsafe sleep environments are responsible for four to six infant deaths in Vermont each year. To help avoid these tragedies, the Vermont Department of Health has launched its Infant Safe Sleep campaign – sharing information, tips and guidance for everyone who takes care of babies. A safe sleep environment means ensuring there is nothing where the baby sleeps that could prevent their ability to breathe because something covers their mouth or nose.
10 Everyday objects that could land you in the ER
November 6, 2018, Reader’s Digest
It’s true—and according to the National Safety Council (NSC), they’re happening with increasing frequency. Unintentional, preventable injuries claimed a record number of lives in 2016 and were the third-leading cause of death. While experts attribute most of that increase to poisoning deaths fueled by opioid overdoses, there are some surprisingly benign-sounding items that lead to a few thousand injuries every year.
Beijing introduces harsher penalties for hoverboard users
November 7, 2018, That’s China
Planning to buy one of those nifty hoverboards or electric skateboards this upcoming Singles’ Day? If so, we have an important heads-up for you: on November 1, the Beijing government increased fines for electric skateboards, hoverboards, unicycles and other motorized gadgets caught navigating the roads of the capital city. According to a Weibo post from Beijing’s traffic police, anyone caught breaking the recently revised traffic law will have their commuter apparatus confiscated and will be charged a RMB200 penalty.
The commonality of A.I. and diversity
November 6, 2018, The New York Times
How to create more diverse workplaces and how to use artificial intelligence ethically are among the more challenging dilemmas facing business and government. While the issues may appear to have little in common besides their complexity, they do overlap. Recently, for example, according to news reports Amazon abandoned a hiring tool that used artificial intelligence because it favored men.Companies must be aware of and recognize that algorithms are not neutral, but created by humans with biases and beliefs and make every effort to eliminate those biases.
Opinion: California’s Proposition 65: still weird after all these years
November 5, 2018, Packaging World
First, though it is a state law, it was passed in 1986 by the citizens of the state as a ballot initiative, not by the state legislature. It’s an unusual procedure, though more common in California than in other states. Second, it cobbles together two very different programs, one aimed at protecting the state’s water supplies by placing various obligations on businesses and people within California, and the other aimed at letting people in California know when they are being knowingly exposed to chemicals the state has concluded cause cancer or reproductive toxicity. Yes, that latter obligation falls on businesses located anywhere in the world if their product ends up in California and exposes people to those chemicals.
This is why it’s so dangerous when older Americans fall the way Ruth Bader Ginsburg did
November 8, 2018, Market Watch
Ruth Bader Ginsburg, the 85-year-old U.S. Supreme Court Justice, was hospitalized for falling, an injury that can have serious long-term consequences. The court’s oldest justice fractured three ribs after falling in her office Thursday was treated at George Washington University Hospital. When an older person is injured from falling, the difficulties of daily living increase by 166%, heart problems increase 46% and depression 58%, according to a report, “The Shock of Falling Among Older Americans,” distributed by the National Bureau of Economic Research, which looked at the University of Michigan’s Health and Retirement Study and the Consumer Product Safety Commission’s nonfatal injury data.
Toxicology and Risk Assessment: A comprehensive introduction
November, 2018, Wiley.com
Toxicology and Risk Assessment: A Comprehensive Introduction, Second Edition reflects recent advances in science and technology, and provides the scientific background and methodological issues to enable the reader to understand the basic principles in toxicology and to evaluate the health risks of specific exposure scenarios.The text provides a complete understanding of how our bodies respond to toxicants, and the principles used to assess the health risks of specific exposure scenarios
The science of studying the effects of extraordinary beliefs on consumer behavior
October 31, 2018, Phys.org (University of Chicago)
The study of superstition and other extraordinary beliefs in the marketplace brings challenges and opportunities for the enhancement of consumer well-being. In “Superstition, Ethics, and Transformative Consumer Research,” published in the October issue of the Journal of the Association for Consumer Research, Stuart Vyse examines the ethical issues involved in research on consumer superstitions and how the principles of Transformative Consumer Research can be applied to this area of investigation to promote consumer welfare and sustainability.
