That asterisk is just horrible. hahaha.

Can't they just put a warning on the side like they do with 5 gallon buckets? I mean, more than three kids have dies in those, but they're still being used.

@s25843: This is the second time that the Consumerist has referenced public masturbation since I've been a reader. My love for this site grows correspondingly.

4.2 Million Blinds... three kids.

How come they don't recall every car ever made? The statistics for fatalities per 4.2 million cars are probably a little worse.

Shame on me, I know, any preventable death is horrible.

But at what point are accidents accidents? We put little hooks high up on our wall so we could hang the cords of each blind; away from naturally curious little hands, or my own stupid fat ones.

Just saying.

All window blinds I've ever seen have always had a strangulation warning--I don't see the need for the recall when it seems to be a known danger with all blinds. They're doing it to cover their asses, I'm aware, but it's like recalling trash bags because kids can suffocate in them. Just tie up the slack of the cords at the midway point and out of the reach of little kids.

I thought that's why they make babyproofing cord roll-ups....

We are shopping for blinds now for exactly this reason. Although our blinds are all the pre-1985 death traps with the even-more-dangerous cords.

For the higher-up windows we got the conversion kits (you can get them free, here, they have the stops and little dingies for the end so you can de-loop the cords: [www.windowcoverings.org] ), but for the windows in the baby's room and that are easy to reach, we're going for the no-cord blinds and I will feel much better once we've done it.

Also my pre-1985 death trap blinds are that charming "old vinyl" color anyway. It'll be a nice update.

(Incidentally, some configurations of those cellular blinds are federal tax credit eligible this year!)

I hate Venetian Blinds

I see this as tampering with natural selection.

But really, snark aside, recalling millions upon millions of blinds because of a design that's fairly vital to their operation is like GM recalling millions of motors from their vehicles because they make the cars go too fast. They've had several decades to try and figure this out, what's the holdup?

Also, there are warning labels (thanks nanny states!) on the packaging and even on the blinds themselves. If people aren't able to take these cautionary measures into account then I begin to wonder about their parenting skills. Yes, yes, I know accidents happen and are often executed under extraordinary circumstances beyond people's control, but if people are just leaving these things dangling then they're cruisin' for a bruisin'.

Tie up your cords, people.

The blinds in my daughter's room had a looped cord like that. I cut them with a pair of scissors and put some fancy beads on the two ends. They work just fine.

@sean98125:
Fancy beads you say? Choking hazard!

Or you could also just do what many companies do and post a warning label. I love the one on car sunshades. They tell you that the airbags can kill you or cause serious injury. I mean thanks a lot. Now what do I do about it?
A child can also be strangled by the cord on a window shade or on draperies. Sean98125 seems to have solved the problem nicely.

@s25843: The inclusion of the word furiously makes me giggle

This is why we're slowly replacing most of the blinds in our house with the cordless kind. Between a toddler and two stupid cats, exposed/looped cords are NOT good.

@dialing_wand: Yeah. I think there should be a new rule. Companies should not be scorned for not having a recall until the fatalities enter into the late double digits. Earlier if all fatalities are children, but still double digits.

@GitEmSteveDave_♥'sRenegadeIrishman: These kids did not "die." They simply fell victim to natural selection.

Seriously, people. You, me, and pretty much everyone else in our age group grew up in a house with blinds similar to these and we didn't strangle ourselves with these cords.

Today in the news, 1000 children have died over the years from injesting many household items. There is now a recall on everything.

@sean98125: That's what I was thinking, but sans beads. Then you keep those strings out of reach by winding/draping them around nails higher than the window. Problem solved. You also have to keep the strings up out of easy reach because of cats, of course.

What a colossal waste of resources. How about threatening your kids lives if they go near the damn shades? Nah can't do that. You can't even beat kids anymore either. What the hell is this world coming to.

@dialing_wand: Fun Toy Banned Because of Three Stupid Dead Kids

@Keavy_Rain: Ugh. Are you kidding me? Children aren't adults, you know.

No one here knows what natural selection actually means. As per usual.

It's about bloody time. Long overdue, actually. I have no idea where the three kids deaths comes from, maybe they meant just this year. I attended the funeral of a toddler who strangled himself to death on these cords back in 1989/1990. In the time it took his mother to go from his room to the laundry room and back he was beyond saving.

There were no warning labels, the blinds came with the apartment and she discovered afterward from the hospital that it was a known problem. So here we are, twenty years later and they are STILL KILLING PEOPLE, but instead of going after these lazy companies for the obvious design flaws still existing in these products let's blame the Tparents for not threatening their children!

@pattiesmart: Not YET.

@Miss_Ingperson:

Last I knew - drinking Drano could kill you as well its had that capability since it was invented. Do we recall that or put it in a safe location? A dresser could easily over-turn on a child if a few of the drawers are pulled out simultaneously. Are we supposed to recall those? No, you fasten the back end to the wall.

How about parents take a look around the their houses and look for ways that their kids could be harmed / killed. I'm no genius but it's rather easy to see that hanging cords are a danger and should be put out of arms reach.

@Miss_Ingperson: I am really sorry that toddlers die from these things, I am, but come on. At what point is it the parent's responsibility for making sure their children are safe. An extreme example, of course, but I'm sure most parents don't leave razor blades out for their children to play with. Personal responsibility, you're doing it wrong.

@Miss_Ingperson: I bet kids die every year from hitting their head on the corner of the coffee table but are we going to recall all coffee tables? any blinds I ever had that had a cord, I ended up always tying them up so they don't streth all the way to the floor and I don't even have kids. How about people screw in a hook so that the cord can hang on that.

I know it's a tragedy for the family but I would think I'd blame myself for the fluke accident rather than ask a company to recall 4.2 million blinds.

@hungryhomer: I think the Consumerist and the Cracked people have been surreptitiously trading stories.

At this rate, every single product produced, regardless what its for, will have to have a "keep away from children" warning just to avoid lawsuits and this kind of recall. It bothers me though that it seems more and more, law is trumping common sense.

I've installed cord cleats next to the blinds in my house, about six feet off the ground, so my curious two-year-old can't get at them. The blinds don't have looped cords anyways, but you can never be too careful.

There's enough slack that we can operate the blinds just fine without ever unwinding the cords, which makes me wonder why the cords are so long in the first place.

@juri squared: Exactly. This. You wrap the cord around something next to the blind so the cords don't hang down and viola!

Recalls are such huge wastes of resources in like 9 out of 10 instances. Either the company IS truly inept or the users of the product are just plain asinine.

@pattiesmart: "Seriously, people. You, me, and pretty much everyone else in our age group grew up in a house with blinds similar to these and we didn't strangle ourselves with these cords. "

That part there, it means when we were kids it didn't kill us.

I own these shades I'm pretty sure. As I am not a total moron, and am capable of refraining from choking myself, I will not be returning them. Also I like shade.

Any blog post that puts the words "naturally curious children." and *And by "celebrate" we mean "masturbate furiously." in such close proximity is just begging for trouble.

Although we all know curiosity killed the cat, isn't this going too far? Some cats need to die.

@I_have_something_to_say:
Last I knew Drano came with a warning label and a child proof lid. And any responsible parent would attach a dresser to the wall if it were apt to tip over, just like they would put child-proof locks on the cupboard that holds the drano right? But nice straw men.

What we're talking about is an unsafe product that has killed hundreds of children over the years and seriously injured hundreds more. This issue obviously hasn't had the attention it deserves, otherwise it would not still be happening.

@say what?!:
You don't sound like you are sorry at all, actually. You just sound angry. Parents do stupid crap all the time, like leaving their guns laying about, owning pitbulls, or having a swimming pool and sometimes we as a society need to protect kids from their stupidity. If we can make parents aware of the danger from these blinds then maybe another family won't have to suffer. Or maybe we'll still be dealing with this problem in twenty years because people are cheap and stupid.

@bravo369:

You do realize these types of blinds have been recalled before don't you? And we're not talking about a fluke, but a serious design flaw that has killed or injured hundreds of children?
[www.windowblindskillchildren.org]

But if you can tell me how many kids have actually been killed by coffee tables (as opposed to their parents killing them and saying they were killed by hitting the table) in the last, oh, say twenty years, I'd like to hear it.

@G.O.B.: Come on!: +1 ... anything could strangle a kid if there's two cords for them to stick their neck inbetween!

So millions of blinds are going to wind up in a landfill because of this recall - and yet all that is needed to fix the issue is a pair of scissors to cut the drawstring, and the ability to tie knots or attach knobs on the end of the newly cut strings....

Somewhere, Captain Obvious just shit himself.