PRODUCT SAFETY

Abstract

The announcement in the press on May 15 1996 that the daughter of a mother who died of Creutzfeldt Jacobs disease is launching legal action against the UK Government for failing in its duty of care to inform the public about the dangers of eating beef is a timely reminder of the horrendous commercial and legal consequences which can follow if an unsafe product gets onto the consumer market. The ‘mad cow’ disease crisis in the UK and the alleged link between BSE in cows and CJD in humans is likely to have a devastating impact on the medium and long term future of the British beef industry and raises serious issues about the failure to take appropriate steps at the right time to prevent such a crisis occurring. The purpose of this article is to examine the legal regime for preventing unsafe products reaching the marketplace in the first place. It will focus on non‐food products, though many of the provisions discussed also apply to food.

Citation

Johnson, H. (1996), "PRODUCT SAFETY", Managerial Law, Vol. 38 No. 5, pp. 3-21. https://doi.org/10.1108/eb022470