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"  Last week, one department store and three manufacturers agree to pay civil penalties on selling children&amp;#039;s sweatshirts that had drawstrings at the neck. As far back as the 1990, Good Housekeeping has called attention to the danger of engtanglement from drawstring children&amp;#039;s clothing. In fact, from 1985 to 1999 there were 22 deaths and 48 non-fatal injuries recorded. In 1996 the Consumer Product Safety Commission issued guidelines to help prevent children from strangling or getting entangled on the neck and waist drawstrings of upper outerwear garments, such as jackets and sweatshirts. In 1997 ASTM adopted a voluntary standard that incorporated the CPSC&amp;#039;s guidelines. Certain states have also made it illegal to sell upper outerwear garments for children with drawstrings. Since then, there have been at least two announcements a year stating violations by manufacturers and/or stores. An accident occuring with a drawstring outerwear garment can be very high; it happened to my eldest (now 15) when he was five. The drawstring of his hooded sweatshirt got caught on the edge of the slide and if it wasn&amp;#039;t for his cousin running to get me, I don&amp;#039;t know what would have happened. Why do these garments keep getting made, why is this stil occurring? Currently the standards are voluntary; there is no federal regulation in place. If these recalls and civil penalties keep happening at this pace, the CPSC may change their minds and require a federal regulation. What can you do? Look through all your children&amp;#039;s upper garments and make sure that either the drawstrings are removed or they don&amp;#039;t exist at all. This is especially important to do for hand-me-downs and garage sale finds. Go to goodhousekeeping.com for more safety tips for your children. "^^<http://www.w3.org/2001/XMLSchema#string>
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