Skip Hop Recalls Baby Sesame Street Elmo Silicone Teethers Due to Risk of Serious Injury or Death from Choking Hazard

If you scan through the FDA's food recall database on any given week, undeclared allergens will likely account for a substantial portion of what you see. They are one of the most common triggers for food recalls — and for people with serious food allergies, they are among the most dangerous. Understanding how undeclared allergen recalls happen helps you make sense of why they are so frequent and what you should do when one affects a product you use.

Among all consumer product recalls, those involving children's products carry a particular weight. The CPSC has special authority and heightened standards for products intended for infants and young children — because the consequences of a product failure in this category are often catastrophic. New parents, grandparents, and caregivers who care for young children should understand both which products carry the most risk and what they can do to stay ahead of recalls.

The Consumer Product Safety Commission issues hundreds of recalls every year — for furniture that tips over, toys with hazardous magnets, baby products linked to infant deaths, and appliances that catch fire. But the process that leads from a consumer report to a formal recall is slower, more bureaucratic, and more dependent on corporate cooperation than most people realize. Understanding how CPSC recalls work helps you understand both why recalls happen and why dangerous products sometimes stay on the market longer than they should.