A retraction of a damning report on infant car seats may be a relief for parents who feared for their babies’ safety, but it is an embarrassment for a trusted consumer guide.Consumer Reports said it was conducting an internal investigation into what may have gone wrong in its tests. The magazine originally reported that many seats had “failed disastrously” in test crashes at moderate speeds, but the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration said the tests were conducted at drastically higher speeds than the report had claimed.
Nicole Nason, head of the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration, urged parents Friday to continue using the infant seats.
“You’re doing the right thing. Keep doing it,” Nason said on CBS’s “The Early Show.”
“Parents should have confidence in their car seats, and they need to keep using them,” she said.
Consumer Reports spokesman Ken Weine said he could not say how the tests might have gone awry or who, if anyone, was to blame for the report, which was retracted Thursday.
“This is very early,” he said Thursday. “We found this information out very recently, and as soon as we did we wanted to take the most important step, which is openly communicating with consumers.”
The magazine said it would review its study, retest the car seats and publish a new article as soon as possible. It asked readers and others who may have learned of the tests “to remember that use of any child seat is safer than no child seat, but to suspend judgment on the merits of individual products until the new testing has been completed and the report republished.”
The initial report, released earlier this month, concluded that many car seats failed in crashes at speeds as low as 35 mph. In one test, it said, a dummy child was hurled 30 feet.
But the NHTSA said some of the crash tests were conducted under conditions that would represent being struck at more than 70 mph.
“Consumer Reports was right to withdraw its infant car seat test report, and I appreciate that they have taken this corrective action,” NHTSA administrator Nicole Nason said. “I was troubled by the report because it frightened parents and could have discouraged them from using car seats.”
Nason said more than 100 worried parents had called the agency’s hot line on the evening the original report was released.
Phil Haseltine, executive director of the National Safety Council’s Air Bag & Seat Belt Safety Campaign, said the report had raised doubts among many parents about their car seats despite the “very rigorous standard at NHTSA.”
“I think it’s going to take a substantial educational effort to undo that damage,” said Haseltine, whose organization was created through a partnership of automakers, insurance companies and safety groups.
Researcher Kristy Arbogast, of the Children’s Hospital of Philadelphia, who has studied child seat safety, said, “The worst thing that could happen from a study like this is that parents take their children out of child restraints.”
In a statement Thursday, Consumer Reports said it had received information from the NHTSA “concerning the speed at which our side-impact tests were conducted” - supposedly, 38 mph. Weine said new information from the federal agency showed that the speeds were higher.
The Yonkers-based magazine tested the type of infant car seat that faces the rear and snaps in and out of a base. It initially found only two of the 12 seats worth recommending, and it urged a federal recall of one seat, the Evenflo Discovery. Evenflo had immediately disputed the tests’ validity.
However, Weine said a recall was still being urged for the Discovery and for another seat that was judged unacceptable because it did not fit well in several cars. Evenflo said Thursday that it had run 17 tests on randomly purchased Discovery seats in the last week, and the seat passed federal standards each time.
The original report found that all the car seats except the Discovery performed adequately in 30 mph frontal crashes, which is the standard for seats sold in the United States. But it noted that cars are tested by federal regulators at higher speeds - 35 mph for frontal crashes and 38 mph for side crashes - so the magazine said it tested the seats at those speeds.
“When NHTSA tested the same child seats in conditions representing the 38.5 mph conditions claimed by Consumer Reports, the seats stayed in their bases as they should, instead of failing dramatically,” Nason said.
Consumer Reports’ Don Mays, a product safety director, said at the time, “It’s unconscionable that infant seats, which are designed to protect the most vulnerable children, aren’t routinely tested the same as new cars.”
In the 35-mph frontal test, seats separated from their bases, rotated too far or would have inflicted grave injuries, Consumer Reports said in the original report. At 38 mph, four seats flew out of their bases following side impact, it said.
Weine said Thursday there was no information casting doubt on the 35 mph crashes.
Consumer Reports, published by Consumers Union, has a reputation for objectivity that it backs by refusing any advertising and by refusing to permit use of its reviews in others’ advertising.
It does occasionally get challenged by manufacturers. In 2004, as part of a settlement of an 8-year-old lawsuit, Consumer Reports said that its finding about the Suzuki Samurai SUV - that it “easily rolls over in turns” - applied only to severe swerving turns on the test track.