Letter to the Editor

To the Editor;

I was delighted to read in the 2009 October issue of Paediatrics & Child Health not one but two reports addressing injuries. The Public Policy Advocacy contribution from Safe Kids Canada was especially welcome and timely. I urge all readers to follow Mr Cuzzolino’s request to show their support for the new legislation by writing to Senators and the Minister of Health. As one newspaper report noted, some Liberal senators have objected to the bill because it gives inspectors too much power! (1). I have been following this latest setback with growing concern: this long overdue reform is essential if we are to properly protect our children.

Journal readers may be interested to learn that my most recent attempt to support this reform fell afoul of what amounts to censorship by Health Canada. When a recent publication entitled: “Child and Youth Injury in Review, 2009 Edition – Spotlight on Consumer Product Safety” (2) was being finalized, I was asked to write the introduction. I assume that the invitation arose because of my long relationship with Canadian Hospitals Injury Reporting and Prevention Program – the data that were most prominently featured and my longstanding interest in product safety (3). However, my draft identified many serious shortcomings in the document and I was urged to revise. I clenched my teeth and wrote something far more generous that was judged acceptable. Then, after someone read the final paragraphs more carefully, I was told that they could not possibly publish what I had written because it was ‘critical of the government’.

What were these offensive words? I wrote: “It is disappointing…that each example (of a consumer product injury affecting children) concludes with a long list of educational measures that place the main burden on parents and says far too little about government’s role through compliance, enforcement, or regulatory initiatives”. I added, “If, in spite of considerable evidence to the contrary, some still believe that education is a key component of effective prevention, the Product Safety Bureau must find better ways to ensure that these messages reach all of their intended targets. It must also work with researchers to discover which elements, if any, succeed in changing behaviours”. In the end, I guess Health Canada did not want the ‘spotlight’ shone too brightly on consumer product safety.

Whether it was that observation or what followed that triggered the censorship is anyone’s guess. My conclusion stated, “… the new Consumer Product Safety Act will undoubtedly strengthen the powers of the Directorate. But to do the job properly, it will also require adequate resources to permit more inspections, stronger enforcement, and tougher regulations”. Maybe, they did not like being reminded that a new Act is pointless if the branch responsible for implementing it remains woefully underfunded.

I finished with a plug for a federal focus: “To move still further towards what Canada needs to reduce children’s injuries to the levels achieved by other countries (4), a national Injury Prevention Centre is essential”. I imagine that such a radical proposal also warranted censoring.