Consumer Reports Retracts Its Damning Car-Seat Study

We blogged here recently about Connsumer Reports study declaring that most infant car seats failed miserably in side-impact crash tests. Now comes word that Consumer Reports is retracting the study, an acknowledgment that the study’s methodology was flawed. According to this MSNBC report, the study was meant to test the seats in 38-mph crashes, whereas the actual speed of the impact was closer to 70 mph. MSNBC notes that Consumer Reports outsourced the study, but it doesn’t specify to whom. It also notes that Consumer Reports hasn’t retracted a study since 1998, and that it will re-run the infant car seat tests soon and publish the results. Given that Consumer Reports earlier declared some of the car seats unsafe, I smell a lawsuit. (Thanks to several blog readers for forwarding this news.)