ulletters

After an hour of discussion . . .

A Conversation With UL’s Consumer Affairs Manager: Mr John Drengenberg January, 2008 
Twenty six months after UL had failed to respond to the ‘UL Letters’ (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:

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.”  - As at March, 2011, UL has failed to correct its dangerously flawed UL217 Smoke Alarm Standard.
- Did Ms Rade’s statement implicate UL in the flawed standard’s testing of ionization smoke alarms globally?

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?’.

1st Information Request - 11 Oct, 2005:  1st Response - 13 Oct, 2005:  2nd Information Request - 27 Oct, 2010:  2nd Response - 18 Nov, 2010:  3rd Information Request - 20 Nov, 2010:   UL Response 3:

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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.  UL responds avoiding question.  Restates question FOR THE THIRD TIME  No Response

Washington Post Questioned
UL’s ‘Seal of Approval’

UL Inc’s Headquarters
Chicago, Illinois, USA

The UL Letters - Summary

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 do not agree with that!

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