Defective Products

ACCORDING TO CONSUMER groups and the government agencies that are responsible for protecting Americans from defective products, more than 23 million defective products are likely being used by consumers in the United States alone. These products are considered defective because they have the potential to seriously injure or kill the users. The word “defective” is generally understood to mean imperfect or faulty.

The true extent of injuries and deaths that can be attributed to defective products cannot be reliably known, but experts agree that far more people are injured and killed from defective products each year than from all street crimes combined. Murder kills approximately 16,000 people per year and violent street crimes cause physical injuries to less than 1 million. The most common violent street crime is assault, which typically does not lead to any serious injury requiring hospital treatment.

It is known that even though more than 1,000 products are recalled each year, more than 20,000[Page 248] people in the United States are killed annually by defective products. This number is understood to represent the minimum killed by defective products, for it excludes the 440,000 who die each year from tobacco-related illnesses, the more than 100,000 who die from adverse reactions to legal and approved drugs, the approximately 90,000 who die from eating high-fat diets (including large amounts of fast food products), and the 60,000 who die each year due to toxic chemicals.

An estimated 30 million Americans are injured by defective products, as well. For example, nearly 200,000 children require emergency-room care for toy-related injuries, and more than 2 million people suffer from serious reactions related to approved drugs. The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) estimates that food-borne diseases, caused by pathogens such as listeria, salmonella, and toxoplasma, lead to more than 75 million illnesses, 325,000 hospitalizations, and 5,000 deaths every year in the United States. The total cost to American society attributable to injuries, deaths, and property damage caused by defective products is estimated to be more than $500 billion every year. The direct costs of all street crimes combined is thought to be less than $20 billion per year.