wanting a national conversation -- host: what does that mean, national conversation? guest: it means let's be honest. book was called "muzzled," because honest debate is muzzled in this country could it is like bad etiquette, like talking about sex in front of the children. but these blowups are how we have to national conversation in the country. i am ons a columnist -- my third ferguson column now. this is not what happened after fallujah. this country wants an honest talk about race, but conservatives say "i cannot talk honestly about race without being called a racist." isn't that a problem itself? it is only after we get a trade n or marti -- trayvon marti

ferguson that we have to talk. host: lydia. caller: good morning, mr. page. i have followed your career for years and i agree with you on most things. guest: well, that is better than my wife. [laughter] caller: but the idea that the president needs to be saying about race -- if we have insulted the racial problem in the country 300 years after civil war, what can the pet -- if we haven't solved the racial problem in this country 200 years after the civil war, what do you think the president can do in five years? guest: that is a good question. caller: we need a plan for revitalizing black communities across the country to create jobs. hud would be a big help in this -- caring down these -- tearing down these boarded-up apartment buildings, and give young people jobs. as long as there is no jobs in the black community, these kids stand around and walk around all day.

they see other people with jobs and money and cars, all the things that they aspire to half. as for ferguson, they have a fergusons all over this country, right here in baltimore, maryland, where i live. on the police force when they can't find a job anywhere else, and these barney fifeone of t -- barney wannabes protect and serve the white community, and they harass black men. you cannot stand on the corner and talk to your friends -- you don't have a swimming pools and recreation places to go. get in me to shut up and my house or he would arrest me. host: we will let clarence page comment. guest: there is a lot there. for one thing, she sounds like the kerner commission report, talking about a marshall plan.

whitney young for decades called for a marshall plan for america's cities to redevelop these communities that have been devastated. for the last couple decades the urban league stopped calling for it. they were getting nowhere, and i certainly expect barack obama to get nowhere proposing it with this congress. washington is not in the mood to help inner cities in that way. but there is no question that we have to deal with the underlying causes of these racial interruption -- racial eruptions. and it is not just the black community. there have been other communities as well. and stories talking about why property -- white poverty. in appalachia, where i was a war on poverty volunteer as a college student. i watched poverty take on a black face in the media, but still white poor outnumber the

black poor. we should not forget that. host: michael is waiting on our line for republicans. caller: good morning. clarence, i appreciate the opportunity to talk to. -- talk to you. guest: thank you. caller: i am a thomas sowell, gu guy. guest: i don't hate thomas sowell. caller: i hope you don't hate me for being that. guest: i love everybody, just want you to know that. caller: i was raised by a white liberal mom, but i've seen the light, so to speak. as a white radical guy raised by a white mother, white grandmother, with dark skin. that is what i see. nic liberals -- and i see beerals -- they always can

judged by their intent and not the results. give you an example, johnson's great society, they paid women to have babies if the father left the home. now we have 70% of the inner-city, blacks, minorities, whites as well, households with no daddies. that is the problem right there. guest: the welfare reform plan that newt gingrich and bill clinton pushed through in 1996? i'm sorry, still there? host: still there, michael? guest: how did you like the welfare reform bill that in bill clinton and newt gingrich pushed her in 1996 to change the system? caller: well, i liked it, but obama has taken the work requirement out of it. there is a problem there. guest: that's the problem we have today, misinformation, because obama has not taken the work requirement out of welfare reform. the misses out there -- the myth

is out there. it is fair, it is up to president obama to sell this programs. it is not my job in the media to sell his programs. i think he has undermined his own -- both within aca -- with the aca and other programs, by not pushing them hard enough. this is what makes politics in america. i bring up again the "new york from this week and looking at black and white attitudes, two thirds of the white response sounding like the caller justin out in terms of how the war on poverty was a lah, whilelah blah b two thirds of blacks feel the other way. that is a big divide in this country, just perception, and perceptions of police are some of the biggest divides of all. host: the caller rings up president johnson's vision of a great society and that is our

next segment in "washington journal." time for a few more calls. donna in massachusetts on our line for democrats. caller: good morning to you, and thank you for having such a wonderful discussion at a very serious time, mr. cage. -- mr. page. i am in my mid-60's and grew up during the age of the 1960's, but also, i grew up in a family that not only spoke of their history and their culture, but did it in a way so that their actions showed what was important to us. do needthat really, we to go back to be telling the truth of the history of the colonization of this country. until we can really tell the truth about what happened and how america became the way that

it is today, and people understand their own history, i bet you a very few of the irish realize that they came to be the indentured servants of the english. so there is always a caste system, no matter what plan you come from. there has always been the underclass, the people who were made to do all the work with no pay and no power. has continued since the english walked up on the continent of north america. guest: you know, i agree, we need to look at the history of the country, the rich ethnic history of the country. greatmccourt, the late, frank mccourt of "angela's ashes" fame, was a friend, and he opened my eyes to a lot of

irish-american history. one thing he mentioned, the harbor in new orleans, they would send irish workers to unload the cotton because often -- or i should say to load the cotton, because they were explosions with rotten fibers in the air and people would die. slaves cost money, whereas you could buy an irish man for pennies a day. enat is why they send irish m to do this. it says so much to me about the dynamism of class in this country and ethnicity that continues today. americans, rather than trying to pretend, "we are all the same," blah blah blah, no, let's talk about diversity. our strength is our diversity but it has faultlines, it has weaknesses in it, and if we play to those weaknesses, we fall apart, but if we play to the strengths we prosper. host: tennessee on our line for republicans. caller: good morning. thanks for taking my call.

during 1967i live in the city of detroit, where they had the rights. in the national guard, tanks down the road. the problem with the riots, detroit suffered a very huge economic disorder because of it. when you bring your own neighborhoods and loot a lot of detroit was divided, 52% white, 48% black. residents.lion at that time, that just escalated. it got to the place where businesses -- like for example, if you wanted to buy your groceries, you could not buy them within the city of detroit. but if you found somebody, or you could actually buy your , it is almost 1.5

times what it is. ferguson, with the writing, will suffer some of the same economic punishment. host: before you answer, should know that some images we are showing of the tour came from 1967. i will let you respond to the caller. guest: detroit is like a second city to me. i have so many relatives in town . i was in detroit days after the riots. and working on the war on poverty in appalachia, i went up. the caller is right about the negative impact of those riots. but it is also true that those riots were caused by complaints over police action. contrary to the label "race r it started in those after-hours bars were black and white would get together, and 4:00 in the morning, please came and -- police came and raided

it and it turned into a mob scene that turned into a riot, etc. it is a fact of life up there that detroit suffered as a result of that, but it was something that was the result of result in sentiment -- of problems that had been brewing for a long time. i went back to the troy recently and it may -- i went back to detroit recently and it may go through a second recount now. sameson shows some of the sense, but ferguson is right next to st. louis, let's remember, so they are not as isolated. .etroit is so huge you could put manhattan and san francisco on it and still have land left over. detroit was built for previous economy back in world war ii. in any case, the period we're

talking about in the 1960's has shaped our concept of cities today as we know them. i think this younger generation is coming along now in places like detroit and gentrifying the city. look at d.c. in the mid-1970's it was chocolate city. suburbs, city, vanilla according to the funkadelic at that time. but now, the city council is majority white. we are seeing a revival of neighborhoods here. for now we can't find places for poor folks to live. host: one more call, william interest in, virginia -- in reston, virginia, on our line for independents. caller: good morning, gentlemen. part of all, these key --t tea partiers, do they know who -- [indiscernible]

and what would the amount of hate be if these people were white? guest: what was the tea party question again? of the membersy atticks is?spus and if the protesters were white man, with a have all these hate rs? guest -- if the president were a white man would he have all these haters? guest: i can't say he would have with a whiteters father, but would he have been as impressive 10 years ago at the democratic convention if he were another white speaker? he would've been a more eloquent john edwards but i don't know if you would have had the kind of impact that he did. i think his racial background is

significant, his international background is significant. it says a lot about him and us. host: clarence page is a columnist with "the chicago tribune" and his 30th anniversary collection of columns is out next month. we appreciate you coming by on "washington journal." guest: i appreciate you having me. host: our weeklong series on the great society wraps up as we look at the commission on product safety. later, our weekly "america by the numbers" segment will look at consumer spending and economic well-being. we will be right back.

>> here are some of the highlights for this weekend. tonight on c-span in primetime, we will visit important sites in the history of the civil rights movement. saturday at 8:00, highlights from this year's new york ideas forum, including a cancer biologist. "q&a," with new york times man charlie rangel at 8:00 p.m. eastern. tonight at 8:00 on c-span2, religious scholar reza aslan. saturday at 10:00, ben carson. the competition between the wright brothers and glenn curtiss to be the predominant name in manned flight. american history tv on c-span3, tonight at 8:00 eastern, a look at hollywood's portrayal of slavery.

saturday at 8:00 the 200th anniversary of the battle of bladensburg. sunday, former white house chiefs of staff discuss how presidents make decisions. find out television schedule one week in advance at cspan.org, and let us know what you think of the programs you are watching. conversation.n like us on facebook, follow us on twitter. >> "washington journal" continues. host: today we wrap up our weeklong series on president lyndon johnson's vision for a so called great society. we are discussing the 1977 commission on product safety. it is the commission from which today's consumer product safety commission was born. talk about it, robert adler joins us. he is one of the commissioners sc.h this etf see -- cp

we want to talk about the proposed national commission on product safety. he says that host: can you talk about the role of product safety pre-1967? guest: it is a fascinating piece of history. it goes back to john kennedy and the new frontier. in march of 1962 he sent a special message to congress where he first spelled out the right to be informed, the right to choose, the right to be heard, and the right to safety.

that is a team that was picked up and really expanded during the mid-1960's to the mid-1970's. we often call that the consumer decade. just a thing the safety legislation that was passed during that period. you can go to 1966, when the national traffic safety and administration was set up, 1967, the national transportation 1870, therd, environmental protection agency and the occupational safety and health administration, and then finally in 1972, the consumer products safety act was passed. all of those had as a theme safety. safety became the watchword of the day. host: what was this commission charged with doing when it was created? guest: it was charged to look into 4 aspects. first was federal legislation, which they felt was piecemeal and random and intermittent. they'll were also to look at the product liability system to see if that effectively protected the public. they wanted the commission to look at the industry's

self-regulation and wanted to see what state and local laws applied and how effective they were in protecting the public. that was the mandate to the national commission on private -- product safety. those state and local laws and how they were protecting the public were also the subject of the message to congress that you noted earlier. quotery 16, 1967, to lyndon johnson's words again host: so who specifically was in charge? was this mostly a state effort in 1967 when comes to product safety? guest: in those days, yes. there was federal legislation

but it was fairly small. there was, for example, in 1956 a piece of legislation that i still think is the best safety standard ever, gate -- ever promulgated, on refrigerator doors. not until 1953 -- excuse me, 1960 -- did we get more legislation addressing consumer hazards. so the state and local legislation was not very effective, and the federal legislation was not comprehensive enough. we have a mandate over roughly 15,000 product categories that congress passed legislation dealing only with a small number of those. host: robert adler is commissioner with the consumer product safety commission. he joins us as we are talking about president johnson's vision for a so called great society. when he set up this commission in 1967, was the goal always to create the independent agency that you are a commissioner for? guest: yes. get been told they couldn't

congress to enact legislation, so they did what is often done in washington. you set up a commission and stack it with people that you know are going to reach a preordained conclusion. they certainly did that, and the commission very strongly recommended the astonishment of an independent consumer product safety commission. host: we are asking our viewers to call in on this segment. if you have questions on the consumer product safety commission, we will appear stories and interactions with the cpsc and products that are regulated by the consumer product safety commission. mentioned the 15,000 products that today's consumer product safety commission covers. i've seen it read in some of your testimony to congress that what isn't covered is guns, boats, cars, trains, drugs, and food. why were some things included and other things not included?

guest: there are interesting stories about that. first, you don't address the stuff that is already regulated under federal legislation. back in 1974 we work additioned to -- we were petitioned to exercise jurisdiction over tobacco products. haveess did not want us to jurisdiction over tobacco products, but there is a loophole in the law that they pointed to and they said we think you have jurisdiction over tobacco products, and of course, we did have jurisdiction over tobacco products. fast forward another six weeks and we were conditioned -- petitioned by a group to ban not and weut bullets, exercised jurisdiction under the federal hazardous substances act. if you can imagine, this fledgling agency within the space of a couple months is told it has jurisdiction over tobacco products and bullets, 2 of the most controversial products you could imagine. the fascinating thing about that is that if you think congress can be deadlocked, they weren't

deadlocked then. several weeks later they enacted removedion that tobacco products and bullets jurisdiction from us conclusively. host: and guns as well? guest: we never had euros diction over guns, they made that clear -- never had a jurisdiction over guns, they made that clear. host: was that clear in 1967? guest: it was. and theery small agency controversy surrounding guns is so much of a distraction that if you were going to give jurisdiction to an agency, you would want to give it to an and hashat is bigger more staff than we do. we are a very, very small agency. host: 15,000 products that the cpsc is in charge of regulating product safety for. what is the budget and how many people does it take to do that? guest: as i said, we are a very small agency. we have a budget of $180 million.

i want to put that in context. several years ago i was looking at the fda budget and i noticed that they had added field staff. in that year, about three years ago, they added more field staff and then we have staff. rent what our total budget is. we are staffed with extremely competent technical staff. we do as good a job as we can with limited resources. i think we have done quite a job over the years. host: you talk about agency resources. here is a chart showing the budget baseline for the cpsc over the years. in 2014, the budget, $118 million for comedy people? -- how many people? the moment.taff at when the agency was set up we had almost 1000 staff. if you look at the precipitous drop, you see in particular from

1980 to 1982 great congress came in and they were very unhappy with regulation in general. there was a deregulatory movement, and we probably more than any other agency lost staff and funding. between 1980 and 1982, a 33% drop in staff and 25% drop in funding. we have struggled over the years to come back to parity, but in terms of staff, we are roughly half the amount of staff today that we had back when the agency was first set up. host: what was the regular story concerned -- deregulatory concern, that the cpsc was keeping products from the market or keeping business from growing? it was not limited to the consumer product safety commission. the sad fact for us is that we were the first agency whose reauthorization was cut at the height of the regular story fever -- height of the regulatory fever so all the forces concentrated on us.

the concern was limiting choice, limiting freedom, driving prices up. there was big concern about inflation at the time. all of those were factors that people took into account when they were planning to regulatory agencies. we were not the only regulatory agency under attack. we just happened to face that timing. host: some members on capitol hill, especially republicans, are concerned about this issue is one it comes to regulation. what are some of the interactions with had? -- you have had? guest: those are concerns that we at the consumer product safety commission chair as well. our mandate is not say to get rid of all risks whatever cost. it says to get rid of unreasonable risks. part of the calculation for unreasonable risk is can we reduce it at a reasonable price without interfering with its utility or availability? these are concerns we share with members of congress, and there is a spectrum of views on the hill about the benefit of

regulation and wisdom of consumer product safety commission. i think that if you were to look at statistics of products we have been involved in, you would find that the cost-benefit ratio of our actions has been very favorable over the years. host: how have the general public, folks who may be watching this segment, interact with the cpsc on a daily basis in a way they may not know? guest: we have a hot line where people can call in with complains. we read all the mail cemented to us. big -- submitted to us. beginning in march 2011, we established a database where people who have incidents of harm or potential harm can complaintsents or either through the phone or by writing letters or three ma -- through e-mail. saferproducts.gov. they can access the database to see if the problem they have with their product has been shared with other folks.

host: what is a specific example of how that has worked? guest: well, someone who has, for example, a heater in their could look toted the database and see whether that problem with their heater was idiosyncratic, or whether other consumers had similar problems with the heater. database isthat our accessible to anyone. on a regularorts" basis downloads all of the complaints from the database and tried to put them together in an organized fashion so that they can report to their readers what the leading complaints are and the leading safety concerns are. it is accessible to anyone, and i think the public uses it in a fairly good manner. host: you brought up refrigerator doors earlier in the segment. what is the biggest victory for the consumer product safety commission over the years, the most impactful ones? guest: if you look at the product safety picture over the last century, it has been a favorable one, and it is not

obviously due to the consumer product safety commission alone. a lot of it is due to better production methods. -- i taught in a for 22 years, so i think better production methods are very well-known, and they have helped enormously. i think the consumer product safety commission has played a big role in that. can pick up products such as residential fires, they have dropped over 50 percent, you can look at electric you should, they have dropped over 70%. one of the big success stories for the commission is the poison prevention packaging act. fatal poisonings over the years have dropped by 87%. is a serious concern for everybody because cribbs is infantsere most d most of their time. it has dropped over 90%.

enacted safety act was in 1956 will stop there have been a grand total of no fatalities. it has been that effective. the technology to a dress refrigerator doors, and i think most consumers would know what, is just magnetic strips around the doors so that if an infant crawls into a refrigerator, they can open it easily from within, and it turns out magnetic strips last longer and are cheaper than the latches that were on refrigerators, so it is a wonderful safety standard. i will not pretend that all safety standards are that good. host: viewers, if you have had any interactions with these products, we are talking about consumer product safety commission, concern about specific products, we are talking with robert adler, a commissioner with the cpsc, talking about the history of the work of the consumer product safety commission. phone lines are open, republicans can call (202) 585-3881. democrats (202) 585-3880. independents (202) 585-3882.

we will get to your calls in just a moment, but i wanted to rise ofabout with the so many foreign products coming into the united states, former foreign consumer-products, how does the cpsc monitor those? do foreign copies have to be held to be same standards as american companies who are trying to put products on the market? guest: that is a question for top i have been at the commission for many years with a 25-year gap, but i was there in the early days of the commission. in the early days, imports, which is not an issue for the agency, when i came back, the vast majority of recalls with withommission were imported products, and yes, imported products must meet precisely the same state he me safety -- sa standards as domestic products will stop there trying to ramp up surveillance at ports

so you can stop products that are defective and dangerous before they get into domestic consumption. host: does that include individual inspectors at points of entry? guest: i wish. we have a very limited staff, as i said, so we have actually fy2016ongress for our budget to give us expanded resources so we can cover more ports, but we certainly cover the busiest ports, and we stopped millions of dangerous products over the years, and it is an ongoing effort. host: how to you get your arms around all of the produce coming in? do foreign countries have to register their price with the cpsc? i know there is testing domestic abuse have to go through before they bring products to the market. guest: if you are going to import a product, you have to list that with custom so customs does all of the product's coming into the country, and we have a system that surveys incoming

products, and we look to those where we either have had somebody who has brought in effective or dangerous products in the past and we target those, or we target products that we know often present serious hazards. for example, very often clothing will have drawstrings, so we look in particular for drawstrings chokee drawstrings can little kids. or we look to hairdryer's that if't have protection against they were dropped in a tub. so we look for product that we know present serious hazards. host: we are talking about the history of the cpsc. a tweet -- how much did ralph nader's book "unsafe at any speed" help the agency? guest: i think it played a great role in the consumer movement. the led to the passage of national highway traffic safety

administration, and safety was the watchword. mr. nader was very much involved in the drafting of legislation of the consumer product safety act, so the whole consumer movement helped from it as they come and as i say, that led to what a lot of people call the consumer decade, which lasted roughly from the days of the great society through the middle of the 1970's. host: a call from frances in new york on our line for independents. good morning for stop you're on with robert adler from the consumer product safety commission. caller: good morning. door in sliding glass my room, and the threshold is so , iterous, when i step on it slices my foot. how can i do something? out, and they gave

a contract, but i complained about it to the commissioner and the contractor, and i got nowhere, but it is a dangerous door. guest: it is interesting you raise an issue with a sliding glass door because one of the first issues raised with with a product called architectural glass because if you walk into it and it breaks, it used to break and very dangerous shards and cause horrible injuries to consumers and two young children in particular, so we actually have a standard that requires architectural glass to be safe. it does not sell my status your problem. it sounds like the actual foothold of the sliding glass door is the problem. ray area for ther

commission. we look at summing that is a fixed permanent lead to the floor. what i would urge you to do would be to write a letter to the consumer product safety cpsc.gov and go to submit a complaint, and i will see if i can have somebody follow up and investigate that. host: we are talking about the history of the cpsc. some sets dating back to the beginning of the commission, back to 1957 on product-related injuries -- 100 25,000 injuries a year when it came to heating devices, 100,000 injuries a year on automatic clothing ringers. glass doors, which we talked about just now, 40,000 injuries back in 1967, and wall sockets and extension cords, 30,000 injuries that year. you have a specific interaction with clothing ringers as i

understand. >> i am one of the statistics, as they turned out, and i was surprised to see that back in 1968, they were still selling hundreds of thousands of washers with ringers. when i was a two-year-old, a dog was bothering my brother, my mother ran out to protect my brother, and i stuck my arm and the ringer of the washing machine. i will not show your viewers, but i have two very large scars on my right arm, so that is a matter of personal interest to me, but i think we know that washers with ringers are no longer sold or at least not sold widely. e-mail question from ron in massachusetts. the cpsc has multiple testing facilities and staff. the authorityhave to mandate to u.s. and foreign commercial entities under penalty of failure to conform the standards and twisting -- and testing protocols they are required to follow? guest: that is an excellent question. and if you look at the act, you

will see that congress was concerned about foreign manufacturers and also domestic manufacturers, and what they said was with respect to children's products -- and the reason we are so concerned about children is pretty obvious -- children are involuntary read ands, they cannot heed warning, so we really walk the extra mile to protect children. what congress did was something i thought was quite clever. they did not require companies that are making children's products to submit them to the consumer product safety commission for testing and approval. they said the commission must accredit test laboratories that you must submit children's product of if it is covered by a rule or regulation how to test a, and then the manufacturer bet certify that it will safe. the answer is at least for children's product if you are either a foreign or domestic manufacturer, you must have your product tested in an independent lab, and then you must certify that it meets the rules and regulations. host: the third-party testing. guest: that is exactly correct.

host: can you talk with the situation in 2008 that congress can't together to pass a consumer product safety improvement act? guest: yes. yes. that was triggered by a number of retells in 2007. in fact, people caught 2007 the year of recalls. were millions and millions of products recalled when they found a particular imported products were coming in with levels of lead on consumer products, and even large importers, large manufacturers ack apparently gotten l in their self tests, and there were thousands of recalls by enacting the consumer product safety improvement act. they set very stringent products on lead in children's products and lead in paint on all

products, and they established this third-party testing regime that i just discussed. by the way, they also added one additional thing in honor of a young man named danny kaiser, who had died in a play pen that had been the subject of two recalls, but somehow this one had still eluded those recalls, and he suffocated in the playpen. parents were wonderful folks come a lobby their state legislature and the congress to pass legislation to expand rulemaking for children's products, and so we are mandated to write to safety standards a year for what are called the rubble infant products, and we have been chugging along doing that for several years now. cpsc'shat are these see enforcement powers? guest: we have the ability to seek injunctions to prevent the defectiven of th

products. we also have a provision that most agency have which is a recall provision. if we think there is a substantial product hazard, we can issue an order requiring anybody in the distribution chain recall that product. i should add there is one other feature of it that again is shared by many regulatory agencies, and that is if you are a manufacturer, distribute or, or retailer and you find one of your products has a potentially dangerous aspect to it, you are obligated to notify the consumer product safety commission of that potentially dangerous product, and we get hundreds of reports a year. host: let's go to jonathan in greenville, mississippi on our line for independents. jonathan, good morning. caller: hello? host: hi, jonathan, you are on with mr. adler of the cpsc. turned on your tv and just go ahead with your question. caller: ok.

host: jonathan, i need you to turn down your tv and go ahead. products that are coming from other countries, china, that are defective. host: jonathan, we will come back to you. hold on a sec. turned on your tv and we will come back to your question. another question on our twitter page -- i work with these cpsc on child resistant packaging through my job at the epa. these tell us how the cpsc protects the u.s. public. this goes back to the poison prevention packaging act in 1970, and the reason they enacted that was dated now wants to be presented with simply banning a dangerous product or permit it on the market even the warnings to not work, so the solution presented was to say -- let's permit a number of these products that are toxic or

hazardous substance is to be sold, but let's put child resistant packaging on them so that children cannot access them. as i said, it has been a tremendous success. fatalities from poisoning over the years have dropped well over 90% because of the poison prevention packaging act. i should also mention that i am old enough that i remember back gethe day if you try to into a bottle of aspirin, you needed players to do it because the technology was not that good, but today, the technology for child resistant packaging is excellent, and adults have almost no problem opening packages, but children still do, and that is exactly the ideal approach you want. host: we will try jonathan again in greenville, mississippi. jonathan, good morning. go ahead, jonathan. caller: hello? host: yeah, jonathan, go ahead. caller: yes, i'm calling about private sector from china in places, products and come from china, yes, products and come from foreign countries like

china. jonathan, we will just move on. we need you to turn on your tv when you are calling in with your questions or comments. a question for you, mr. adler, who are the most at risk populations in the united states? you talked a lot about protecting children. is it the children? you have also testified about protecting the elderly population. guest: well, depending on the product, different hazard products have emerged, but you are correct i have in concerned by the elderly since i have moved into that demographic. statistics,at the the elderly over 65 constitute 65% of the fatalities from consumer products, and the demographic is only growing. an interesting statistic i've run across -- we have more people age 55 and older than they have people in canada. as