Trends in Consumer Product Warnings Found in Voluntary Standards

Abstract

Consumer products available today in the United States often have safety information on and accompanying them. This practice is far more common now than earlier in the 20^th century. In this paper, the evolution of the use of warnings with consumer products is examined as they appeared in voluntary standards provided by one national standard making body, the American Society for Testing and Materials (ASTM). ASTM had been developing consensus voluntary standards since 1898, but it was not until the 1970s that it first focused on consumer products. Over the next three decades there were increases in the number and type of consumer products included. Further, for any given product, the amount of safety information frequently increased with subsequent revisions of a standard. These trends in warnings generally parallel the patterns observed with federally mandated warnings for consumer products.