Misleading Marketing?
Misleading Marketing?
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The UL Mark
on over 21 billion products in 2008
UL Inc’s Headquarters
Chicago, Illinois, USA
After an hour of discussion . . .
Adrian Butler
Chairman, The World
Fire Safety Foundation
A Conversation With UL’s Consumer Affairs Manager: Mr John Drengenberg
January, 2008
Twenty six months after UL had failed to respond to the third letter (see above), The World Fire Safety
Foundation’s chairman, Adrian Butler, spoke to UL’s Consumer Affairs Manager, Mr John Drengenberg.
The following is an accurate representation of the conversation regarding UL’s alleged Scientific
Misconduct (i.e. fraudulent standards testing) of ionization smoke alarms:
John Drengenberg
UL Consumer
Affairs Manager
John, the bottom line with UL217 (America’s smoke alarm standard) is that you can’t possibly fix it.
Adrian, I can assure you UL will always act in the best interests of the public and
we are working towards changing the standard.
UL has been saying they’re going to fix UL217 since 1978! The existing testing of
ionization smoke alarms is an indictment on UL. The problem is UL can’t develop a legitimate test, because if they did ionization alarms will fail and some of the manufacturer could be put out of business and possibly sue UL.
UL always acts in the best interests of consumers, not the manufacturers.
Many people and organisations don’t agree with that!
AB:
JD:
AB:
JD:
AB:
Note:
- The essence of the problem always come back to the Standards. Alleged ‘Scientific Misconduct’ (i.e. fraudulent testing) allows
ionization smoke alarms to be certified as safe by UL and other Standards organisations globally. In 1999 UL’s Chief Legal
Officer and Senior Vice President, Ms Debra Rade declared UL had “set the entire foundation for product-safety certification”
and “if we don’t anticipate everything, if there’s a misuse of our product we never thought of, we change our standard.”
- Did Ms Rade’s statement implicate UL in the flawed standard’s testing of ionization smoke alarms globally?
- As at July 2010, despite claims of changing the standard “if we don’t anticipate everything”, UL has failed to correct it flawed
UL217 Smoke Alarm Standard
More About American (Underwriter’s Laboratories) Alleged ‘Scientific Misconduct’, Here > > >
More About Australian (Standard’s Australia) Alleged ‘Scientific Misconduct’, Here > > >
UL217 - America’s flawed Smoke Alarm Standard
All World Fire Safety Foundation films are produced by MC2E Productions.
MC2E’s documentary, ‘Stop The Children Burning’, was inspired by the Washington
Post’s award-winning exposé, ‘How Safe are Products Bearing the UL Mark?’.
The Washington Post article exposed Underwriters Laboratories (UL) flawed smoke alarm standard, UL217 UL is the worlds largest independent standards testing organisation.
In October 2005, MC2E wrote to UL:
MC2E Request 1:
UL Response 1:
MC2E Request 2:
UL Response 2:
MC2E Request 3:
UL Response 3:
What steps has UL taken to rectify it’s flawed standard?
States UL’s VP and CEO treating matter with the “utmost seriousness”.
Restates question and re-requests UL to please answer it.
Responds but still fails to answer the question.
Restates question FOR THE THIRD TIME
No Response
The UL Letters - Summary
The UL Letters
Download ‘UL Letters PDF: Here > > >
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