200,000 bassinets in recent recall carry the Graco logo

200,000 bassinets in recent recall carry the Graco logo
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Two weeks after a number of top retailers stopped selling Simplicity bassinets that had been implicated in the deaths of two infants, the Graco company has issued a notice on its Web site warning consumers about 17 Simplicity-made bassinet models that carry the Graco logo. The strangulation deaths of babies in Kansas and Missouri resulted when they became entrapped between metal bars of the bassinet.
The Graco action is the latest twist in a product-safety issue that has been complicated by the fact that Simplicity has gone out of business. The Consumer Product Safety Commission says that SFCA Inc., the company that owns Simplicity's assets, has refused to cooperate with the government and recall the bassinet. Because SFCA would not agree to a voluntary recall, the CPSC* issued a safety alert on August 28 asking parents not to use the 3-in-1 and 4-in-1 convertible "close-sleeper/bedside sleeper" Simplicity bassinets. The CPSC also helped persuade a growing list of retailers?including some of the nation's largest?to pull the Simplicity bassinet from its shelves.
Today the CPSC issued another alert telling consumers that both the Graco bassinet and one with a Winnie the Pooh motif are included in the batch of 900,000 bassinets referenced in the earlier alert. But the Chicago Tribune is reporting today that Graco told the CPSC on August 28 that some of the recalled bassinets carried its brand name. The newspaper also pointed out that the CPSC did not issue an immediate recall. And today's carefully worded notice from the CPSC was not characterized as a recall.
According to the CPSC, the Simplicity bassinets with the Graco logo were sold between 2001 and 2004. The Simplicity bassinets with the Winnie the Pooh motif were sold between 2002 and 2008.
The CPSC is advising owners of the bassinets to stop using them immediately and to return them to the place of purchase for a refund or store credit. Both Simplicity and Graco have updated lists of affected model numbers on their Web sites.
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