Children’s product safety

Issue: BCMJ, vol. 51, No. 2, March 2009, Page 63 News

Injuries from the use of consumer products are common, frequently serious, and sometimes fatal, and there appears to be a disconnection between product safety realities and consumer expectations.

Most Canadians believe that if a product is available for sale on the market, it is safe or has been tested for safety. This is not necessarily the case in Canada, particularly for children’s products. Under the current Hazardous Product Act there are a variety of consumer products, including many children’s products, which do not have any standards or regulations. The result is an increasing risk of product-related injuries to children and youth due to age, cognitive abilities, and developmental stage.

There is a need to renew and modernize Canadian federal product safety legislation. To address this growing need, Safe Kids Canada’s national public awareness campaign, Safe Kids Week, held 25–31 May 2009, will focus on home product safety. Find out how to show your support for the renewal of consumer product safety legislation in Canada by visiting www.safekidscanada.ca and clicking on the Safe Kids Week link, or call 888 SAFE-TIP.

. Children’s product safety. BCMJ, Vol. 51, No. 2, March, 2009, Page(s) 63 - News.


Above is the information needed to cite this article in your paper or presentation. The International Committee of Medical Journal Editors (ICMJE) recommends the following citation style, which is the now nearly universally accepted citation style for scientific papers:
Halpern SD, Ubel PA, Caplan AL, Marion DW, Palmer AM, Schiding JK, et al. Solid-organ transplantation in HIV-infected patients. N Engl J Med. 2002;347:284-7.

About the ICMJE and citation styles

The ICMJE is small group of editors of general medical journals who first met informally in Vancouver, British Columbia, in 1978 to establish guidelines for the format of manuscripts submitted to their journals. The group became known as the Vancouver Group. Its requirements for manuscripts, including formats for bibliographic references developed by the U.S. National Library of Medicine (NLM), were first published in 1979. The Vancouver Group expanded and evolved into the International Committee of Medical Journal Editors (ICMJE), which meets annually. The ICMJE created the Recommendations for the Conduct, Reporting, Editing, and Publication of Scholarly Work in Medical Journals to help authors and editors create and distribute accurate, clear, easily accessible reports of biomedical studies.

An alternate version of ICMJE style is to additionally list the month an issue number, but since most journals use continuous pagination, the shorter form provides sufficient information to locate the reference. The NLM now lists all authors.

BCMJ standard citation style is a slight modification of the ICMJE/NLM style, as follows:

  • Only the first three authors are listed, followed by "et al."
  • There is no period after the journal name.
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For more information on the ICMJE Recommendations for the Conduct, Reporting, Editing, and Publication of Scholarly Work in Medical Journals, visit www.icmje.org

BCMJ Guidelines for Authors

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