I wrote about this issue a while ago, and now the questions I pondered are being answered. The BBC reports:
A mandatory certification programme is now being developed by the US Toy Industry Association and the CPSC as part of the House of Representatives bill on consumer safety.
The plan provides for stricter procedures for analysing safety during the design and manufacturing of toys and the testing of finished products, as well as factory audits.
Sounds good, although the fact that there are huge beef recalls in recent news does not inspire a lot of confidence in the controls system proposed. In particular, I was just reading how a massive California meat recall was started after undercover video was released by the Humane Society.
The recall by the Westland/Hallmark Meat Company, based in Chino, Calif., comes after a widening animal-abuse scandal that started after the Humane Society of the United States distributed an undercover video on Jan. 30 that showed workers kicking sick cows and using forklifts to force them to walk.
[…]
The video was embarrassing for the Department of Agriculture, as inspectors are supposed to be monitoring slaughterhouses for abuse. It surfaced after a year of increasing concerns about the safety of the meat supply amid a sharp increase in the number of recalls tied to a particularly deadly form of the E. coli pathogen.
And in another case auditors discovered that their inspectors audited the wrong Chinese facility. Controls are definitely non-trivial to design and manage properly.
“The recall is obviously the big news,” said Wayne Pacelle, president and chief executive of the Humane Society. “The longer-term problem is the inadequacies of the inspection system. How can so many downers [cows that can no longer walk] have been mistreated day after day within a U.S.D.A. oversight system that was present at the plant?
“We need more boots on the ground at the plants,” he said.
Yes, although the fact that the video on YouTube created a public outcry might suggest some technology solutions that could reduce this requirement for “boots”. Surveillance obviously has some advantages over moving bodies, especially in terms of remote locations. And the fact that surveillance, video and RFID, might also help ranchers manage their own stocks could make it a good thing for everyone. On the flip side, everyone knows that ranchers hate accuracy and measurements in the system as it shifts the balance of control away from them and into the regulators/auditors. That means higher tax and overhead implications. Like I said, controls are non-trivial to design properly.