Tipping point: Making TVs safe

The recent news of three Chicago-area children fatally crushed by falling TVs has rippled far beyond their communities to help reignite the debate on TV safety.

The head of a national children's safety institution declared he will launch a specialized study on the topic, and the Northbrook, Ill.-based agency that sets TV safety standards is revisiting the matter.

Gianna Hadjis, a 4-year-old University Park, Ill., girl who died Jan. 15 when a TV tipped over while she was playing, was the third Chicago-area child to die from a falling TV in less than three months.

"It is just very sad that we continue to see needless injury, and in this case death, from TV tip-overs when we know this can be prevented," said Dr. Gary Smith, president of the Child Injury Prevention Alliance.

The nonprofit will join forces with the Ohio-based Center for Injury Research and Policy, which receives funding from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, to embark next summer on what Smith said is the first nationwide study that will look specifically at TV-related deaths and injuries in children.

The goal is to provide in-depth data to better inform policy decisions, said Smith, who serves as the director of the Center and will act as senior researcher on the study.

"The most important thing is to require that TVs get sold with safety devices at the point of sale," he said. "We're going to be working on this topic and trying to bring information to the table until the job gets done, until the policy changes."

Safety experts continue to call for safety straps or anchors to keep TVs from tipping over. But manufacturers aren't required to include them, and many of the country's biggest retailers, including Best Buy and Walmart, do not sell the straps in their stores.

Northbrook-based Underwriters Laboratories, which tests the majority of TVs on the market, is charged with setting voluntary safety standards for TVs and stands. After the first two Chicago-area TV-related deaths, UL initiated a meeting with manufacturers to revisit the standards, last revised in 2004. They met last week, two days after the third death.

"UL takes this issue very seriously," consumer safety director John Drengenberg said. "We have people who are specialists in TV safety, and tip-over is certainly a part of that."

The group will continue the discussion next month, Drengenberg said. In the meantime, he stresses safety tips that include anchoring TVs to walls, placing TVs on stands designed for them (as opposed to dressers) and keeping items away that would encourage children to climb on or near TVs.

Rachel Weintraub, director of product safety and senior counsel for the Consumer Federation of America, a coalition of nonprofit consumer groups, would like to see the straps included with TVs and sold by every retailer that carries TVs. But even that doesn't go far enough, she said.

"There needs to be a robust review of the existing voluntary standards for TVs, and those standards need to be strengthened to prevent these kind of tragedies," she said.

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By Duaa Eldeib - Chicago Tribune (MCT)

(c)2012 the Chicago Tribune

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