Agencies launch one-stop portal for product recalls

Just in time for the holiday gift-buying season, six agencies have unveiled a Web portal listing recalled consumer products.The site, , provides not only the recalled household items listed by the Consumer Product Safety Commission but also data on recalled motor vehicles, recreational boats, food, medicines, cosmetics and pesticides.CPSC has owned the www.recalls.gov URL for some time but had not used it until the launch of the portal, commission spokeswoman Nychelle Fleming said.The home page features a series of tabs organized by product type. The pages linked to each tab contain links to lists of product recalls and to the home page of the agency responsible for regulating those products.The subpages also feature a link, marked with a red arrow, that tells consumers how to report problems to agencies.The regulatory agencies that are CPSC’s partners on the portal—the Coast Guard, Environmental Protection Agency, Food and Drug Administration, Food Safety Inspection Service and National Highway Traffic Safety Administration—are responsible for updating their own recall lists, Fleming said. The General Services Administration team that manages the FirstGov portal operates Recalls.gov in conjunction with the CPSC webmaster.Twenty retailers, trade groups and consumer advocacy organizations have signed on as partners. Their responsibility is to promote Recalls.gov through in-store signs, Web pages and other methods, Fleming said.