Oh no!   I wonder how many of those rug institute tests are farmed out.

I don't see anything wrong with CU farming out tests that it can't run in their own labs.   They attempt to provide tests that are both accurate and useful for real world usage.  CU was quick to publicize and acknowledge the mistake.  The point of their original article was that tests of car seats in the US are less stringent than perhaps they ought to be is still valid.  The children who were killed in real world situations when car seats failed are still dead too.   It's also a valid point that car seat manufacturers have additional safety features on their European models where standards are higher.   While the mistake is certainly embarrassing for CU, improving car seat safety standards is a worthy goal.

In its 71 year history, Consumer Reports has 2 retractions.  One in 1998 on pet food and now this one on car seats TWO WEEKS ago.  The original report appears in the Feb 2007 CR issue.  
 
The CU retraction and apology are both quick with the news media spreading the word.  Just like the original report.  A revised car seat safety report is due out, with I suspect, an autopsy of went went wrong with the first.  
 
Most, I believe, applaud CR for getting the news out quickly, both for the original report, and the retraction.  In the former, time was of the essence because the lifes of innocent babies and children entrusted to their parents, providers and caregivers are at stake.  Is there anything in the universe that Americans hold more precious than these lifes?  Anything that is more important to us than their safety, protection and well-being?  No.  H-E-double hockey sticks NO!  In the latter, for CR's honesty and integrity.
 
I agree that this is a big embarrassment for CU......but certainly not its death knell.
 
BTW, the Feb 2007 CR, the edition with the original car seat safety report, said ratings of 60 vacuums are coming soon!  
 
Carmine D.

Here is what I see wrong in outsourcing testing.  Though (Consumer's Union)  CU may be "un-biased" and accepts not advertising.  We don't know who is supporting the labs they outsource to.  What CU should do in their reports is to state the testing institute which performed the test.  The test method that was used, and the background of that lab.  
 
Everything can be a variable in testing, including the testor.  CR used to report on their testing methods, maybe they have dropped this practice in an effort to save type space, and paper; it does, however, call into quetion the results for me.  
 
This should serve as a lesson to consumers what has been stated many times here before.  "Consumer Reports is a guide, not a Bible."  

A letter from CU President Jim Guest - sent to subscribers
 
By now, you've probably heard the news about my decision to withdraw the infant car seat report featured on ConsumerReports.org and in the February issue of Consumer Reports magazine. I took this action when we discovered a mistake in our side-impact crash tests.
 
We always strive to be accurate and fair, and I regret this error. Going forward, I want to make sure that our actions are as thorough and transparent as possible so that we preserve your trust as we continue to test, inform, and protect consumers. To that end, I'm writing you and the millions of other Consumers Union members to tell you what I know about the situation and what we're doing about it.
 
Here's what I know so far: One of our tests was intended to simulate how infant car seats perform in a side-impact crash at 38 mph. That's the speed at which many new vehicles are tested in side crashes by the government's auto safety agency. But upon reevaluating our data, we believe our tests simulated crashes that were much more severe than that.
 
Some of the questions I've heard involve our use of an outside lab to conduct the crash tests. While the vast majority of product testing by Consumers Union occurs in our own labs, we sometimes use outside contractors that have special test equipment or other expertise that we don't. This enables us to inform you about the safety, reliability, and performance of important products that we couldn't otherwise test.
 
That said, we expect all our testing to meet the same high standards, and our own staff oversees all projects. The board of directors and I are appointing a panel of experts to review this incident and determine what went wrong.
 
We're also retesting the infant car seats featured in our article as thoroughly and quickly as possible, so that we can publish our findings and help parents who are making this important buying decision. I've directed that we suspend the article's Ratings and other recommendations regarding specific car-seat models until this retesting is completed. In any case, I again stress the importance of what we say in the article: Any child car seat is better than no seat at all.
 
For 71 years, the staff of Consumers Union has worked hard to earn the trust of members like you and to build the stellar reputation we have enjoyed. We test more than 3,000 products each year, and errors like this one are rare. I apologize on behalf of Consumers Union and I promise you we're working hard to ensure that such an error does not happen again.
 
Sincerely,
 
 
 
Jim Guest
President