SAFE SHOPPING GUIDE TO ASSIST PARENTS IN PROTECTING CHILDREN

Attorney General Madigan Launches New Tool to Protect Children from Dangerous Products

Chicago – Attorney General Lisa Madigan today released a 2007 Safe Shopping Guide to help parents steer clear of recalled children's products as they shop for holiday gifts. The guide contains color photos and descriptions of hundreds of products recalled during 2007, including toys, jewelry, furniture and clothes.

This resource is the first comprehensive guide to help Illinois consumers in making holiday shopping purchases and in identifying and removing recalled products that may already be in their homes.

“As parents, we are all trying to make sure that our children are protected from dangerous products,” said Attorney General Madigan. “This guide is designed to put detailed information about recalled children's products in a clear, accessible format. With this guide, parents can more easily make sure that they don't buy recalled products as holiday gifts and also check to make sure their children do not already have access to these items.”

The 91-page guide lists recalled products and provides the product name and manufacturer, the unsafe features and the recall date. Copies of the guide, including editions with background information in Spanish and Polish, are available free to consumers at all of the Attorney General's main and regional offices. The office locations are:

Consumers also may request a hard copy via mail, free of charge, by calling the Attorney General's Recall Hotline: 1-888-414-7678.

The Safe Shopping Guide is also available for viewing or downloading on the Attorney General's Web site at www.illinoisattorneygeneral.gov.

The guide provides information that is particularly critical for consumers given the increasing number of recalls in recent months. Due to the high number of recalls, area retailers are often struggling to remove dangerous products from shelves promptly and to comply with Illinois' recall notification laws, which require retailers that sold recalled products to post the recall notice in their stores.

In addition, millions of recalled items that are already in children's homes and places they visit, such as grandparents' homes and daycare centers, may pose a threat to children's safety.

The 2007 Safe Shopping Guide is another project in Attorney General Madigan's ongoing work to protect consumers from unsafe products. In October, Madigan initiated a recall hotline, 1-888-414-7678, to help callers identify recalled products in their homes and access information needed to contact companies to repair or return affected products.

The hotline has received approximately 300 calls in its first six weeks of operation and has been a successful tool for consumers, especially those without access to the Internet.

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