End buyer safety panel, a former chairman says

May 12, 1981

The Consumer Product Safety Commission has done its job and should be abolished, Richard Simpson, a former commission chairman, says. He says industry now turns out safer products, not because of possible product liability suits by consumers.

President Reagan wants to cut the commission's budget by a third. In addition, legislation is emerging to lessen the commission's power to ban products and limit the kinds of information it could make public.

Various consumers groups have said that even reducing the commission's budget would expose Americans to new risks because the marketplace wo uld not be policed.