This post was written by Stephen P. Murphy.
On Aug. 14, 2008, the President signed the Consumer Product Safety Improvements Act (the Act) into law. By an unfortunate and possibly unintended consequence of poor drafting by the Congress, all of the statutes enforced by the U.S. Consumer Products Safety Commission were brought within the coverage of the new Act. One of those statutes is the Poison Prevention Packaging Act, which requires a wide range of pharmaceuticals to be packaged in child-resistant packaging. Under the new Act, all such pharmaceuticals manufactured after Nov. 12, 2008 are now required to have general conformity certificates by which either the importer or the domestic manufacturer, on the basis of a reasonable testing program, attests that the products comply with the PPPA. These certificates are required to “accompany” each lot or batch of products manufactured. The CPSC has construed that an electronic certificate readily available to the CPSC or to the Customs and Border Patrol complies with the new Act. But the products must have on the shipping documents or the shipping package, a unique identifier and a URL to the website in order to facilitate review. The certificates are intended to be available through the chain of distribution, but not to patients. There are some exceptions to this statute. These rules become effective Feb. 19, 2009.
The CPSC has publicly stated that it does not have the resources to specifically enforce the new Act now, but will do so in the ordinary course of its regular activity. The CPSC expects to get supplemental funding for enforcement and other activities toward the middle of the second quarter of 2009. However, Customs is authorized by the Act to detain and destroy products that do not have the required general conformity certificate. Along with this new authority, the Act has increased the fines that CPSC can impose from $5,000 per violation to $1.25 million, and for a series of violations from $1.825 million to $15 million. In addition, the new Act introduces criminal penalties for knowing violations of the new Act and of the other statutes enforced by the CPSC.
