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Textiles

Philadelphia Uni to establish institute for textile & apparel product safety

23 Oct '07
3 min read
Established in July by President Bush to improve the safety of imported products, the interagency working group's charge comes on the heels of recent highly-publicized incidents involving Chinese-made toys and toothpaste found to have high levels of chemicals and toxins.

In recent weeks, Mattel recalled some 9.5 million toys in the U.S. because of safety concerns about lead. And in June, the U.S. Food and Drug Administration warned consumers not to use toothpaste made in China after some brands were found to contain a poisonous ingredient also found in antifreeze.

Philadelphia University, with its long-standing history of textile-related programs and a research center already dedicated to state-of-the-art research in textiles and apparel, is perfectly positioned to lead efforts to identify problems and help ensure the safety of imported apparel.

The University also is a member of the National Textile Center, a federally-funded group made up of eight top universities that conduct textiles research.

The main problem, Brookstein said, is that potentially dangerous textile dyes and finishing agents that are no longer used by U.S. manufacturing companies may still be in use overseas for textile and apparel production.

Brookstein, Sc.D, an engineer with expertise in textile technology, will be executive director of the Institute for Textile and Apparel Product Safety (ITAPS) and Jeffrey Ashley, Ph.D, associate professor of chemistry, will be technical director.

Michael O. Leavitt, secretary of the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services and chair of the Interagency Working Group on Import Safety, wrote in the working group's initial Sept. 10 report that, while Americans benefit from among the highest standards of consumer protection in the world.

"It is not possible to eliminate all risk with imported and domestic products, [and] being smarter requires us to find new ways to protect American consumers and continually improve the safety of our imports."

The interagency group includes officials from the U.S. departments of Commerce, Health and Human Services, State, Treasury, Justice, Agriculture, Transportation, Homeland Security and the Office of Management and Budget, the U.S. Trade Representative, the Environmental Protection Agency and the Consumer Product Safety Commission.

Philadelphia University
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