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THE DEADLY LIES OF UNDERWRITERS’ LABORATORIES

Underwriters’ Laboratories (UL) is known as a “Certifier of Fire Safe Products”. It tests electrical and heat producing products and systems and many other devices that are considered to be fire hazardous or dangerous. The public assumes that the UL Label on a system or device guarantees that it is safe to use. There is some truth to that, but there is far more that goes on behind that façade of humanitarianism than is realized. The reality is UL has gained control of a very broad segment of American commerce and it uses that power to enrich itself; too often at a huge cost in human life. Almost no one is aware that the products and systems that are sold with the UL Label (a presumed certification of safety) initiate more fires in homes than any other condition or cause including smoking. However, what is “safe” by the laboratory testing is not necessarily “safe” in the field.

The game that is played is a game where a business wanting to market a product obtains the “right to sell” only by paying UL for the privilege. UL is like a “toll booth” at the highway to the American marketplace. If a business wants to sell a product that is of electrical in nature, or heat producing or potentially unsafe; first it is necessary to pay UL to test it and “certify” that it is “safe”. Then usually the seller must pay a fee every time the UL Label is placed on the product being sold. This is not necessarily bad; provided the testing is honest and the devices and systems are adequately tested and are reasonably safe. What makes the operation at Underwriters Laboratories a “children killing service” is when UL cuts deals with its clients to inadequately test and/or rig the testing to “certify as safe” systems and devices that are unsafe and sometimes exceedingly deadly.

When the testing has been compromised or rigged to allow businesses sell dangerous products to the public and deaths result, I say that is a criminal operation worse than the actions of any serial killer because dishonest testing can result in tens of thousands of fire

deaths and hundreds of thousands of injuries. As an engineer who has investigated UL for years and knows how the scams work, I can assure the public and the press that UL has been far more deadly than all of our famous serial killers combined.

As one of many examples of the killing power of UL I will briefly discuss the SMOKE DETECTOR FRAUD as it relates to UL. During the 1960s UL was approached with a new type of fire detector that was named a Products of Combustion (POC) detector (not a smoke detector). The makers of the device claimed it was incredibly fast to warn of a fire. Indeed, they claimed that it would sound a warning “before smoke or flames appeared”. Now that is fast! Supposedly ions (electrically charged atoms) would be emitted by combustible materials as they were being heated, but prior to any flames or smoke appearing. Then, supposedly these ions would rapidly spread throughout a home. When they met with and entered the POC device (anywhere in the home) it would sound a warning of the pre-fire condition. Thus the home occupants could terminate a potential fire before it actually became a fire.

Presumably the financial people at UL rubbed their hands with glee. If this device could be mandated by code to be installed in all homes the market could be well into the billions of dollars. Probably this could bring millions of dollars into the test lab. Now I must admit I do not have the details of the agreement between the makers of the POC device and UL; I merely speculate based on what transpired. What I do know is that UL very inadequately tested the device and allowed a dangerous product to be mass marketed into eventually about 90 million U.S. homes.

For 16 years the makers of the POC device advertised the device as a “smoke” detector (not a POC detector) within the Fire Journal magazine of the National Fire Protection Association (NFPA). They claimed in full page

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ads that their devices would warn the occupants of a house of a pre-fire condition (before smoke or flames would appear). Fire chiefs across the U.S. received the NFPA publication. The chiefs respected the NFPA and knew that UL had tested the devices and allowed the UL Logo to be imprinted on it. The NFPA/UL team seemingly was certifying the truth of the published performance claims. That was good enough for the fire chiefs. Soon they were petitioning the legislators to mandate the installations of smoke detectors in homes. Meanwhile the lab tests at UL were confirming the advertised performance claims were outright lies. Therefore, the UL management team had to have known that the fire chiefs and the public were being conned. But UL was profiting from the scam, so the secret was safe with the lab officials..

It was strange though, the device false alarmed excessively to non-fires. And yet people continued to die at about the same rate within the “smoke detector protected” homes. Finally, beginning during 1974 federal research money was spent to test smoke and fire detectors. Tests were conducted by setting real fires within real homes. And things did not go well. When the fire was of a smoldering type, on average the ionization devices required in excess of an hour to sound. Many of them failed to sound at all. That was hardly an instantaneous warning. Thus, the Dunes tests proved that UL had “certified as safe” a device being sold as a smoke detector that was incapable of detecting real (visible) smoke. By 1974 when the Dunes Tests began millions of the devices had been sold and thousands of fire deaths and very serious injuries had already happened due to “failures to warn” in time for safe exiting. Thus, UL was possibly facing hundreds or thousands of law suits because a defective device bearing the UL Logo was failing to warn in time for survival and tens of thousands had been killed and injured. The true results of the Dunes Tests represented a potential disaster for UL and for the UL officials and engineers.

Mr. Richard Bukowski, an engineer working for Underwriters’ Laboratories was in charge of the

testing. During the testing had been made to try to speed up the detecting of the fires, but without satisfactory results. When it became impossible to hide the failures of the ionization devices by manipulating the fire test conditions, seemingly there was no way to hide the crimes but to “adjust” the fire test report. The computer generated data for each test was split into many parts and it was all arranged so that it would be necessary to reassemble the data for a particular test to figure out what occurred relative that specific test. Then, apparently with an assumption that no one would restructure the data to check the accuracy of the conclusions; seemingly the engineers could safely become writers of fiction. Thus, the earlier deliberate lies concerning the ability of the device to warn of dangerous conditions were covered-up with new performance lies.

Despite the Dunes cover-up many fire officials remained skeptical because of they had witnessed the testing or heard about the testing. The devices had frequently failed to warn in a timely manner and many officials knew it. Thus the most recent round of lies (the Dunes Tests lies), that were intended to hide the earlier performance lies, were in jeopardy of being revealed to the public. So, after the Dunes Tests, UL officials and engineers needed new lies to cover-up the earlier lies. Those skeptical fire chiefs sure were a pain.

The “solution” that UL came up with was to create a special fire test that would “prove” to the fire chiefs that the ionization device, the original POC detector that magically had become a smoke detector . . . really could detect visible smoke. If it could be “proven” that the POC device detected real (visible) smoke, presumably that would finally put to rest the skepticism. It would “prove” for once and for all that the “smoke detector” was an honest one. But how could it be proven that a device that cannot detect smoke will indeed detect smoke? That was the riddle that had to be solved.

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The key was to develop a fire test that would create an abundance of real (visible-large particulate) smoke while also (hidden within the visible smoke would be created an abundance of the invisible aerosols. The fire officials would see the smoke and assume the smoke was causing the ionization device to sound. But it would be the invisible aerosols that would actually be the trigger. I have been told that a search was made to find the ideal combustible and the best method of testing to accomplish the deception. The final solution was to put Ponderosa Pine sticks on a hot plate and heat them up to near or at 700 degrees Fahrenheit. At that temperature, which is below the autoignition temperature of the sticks, there would not yet be any flames. Therefore the visible smoke would be created by a “smoldering” fire without any flames. Thus, they could demonstrate to the fire officials that a smoldering fire, not a flaming fire, caused the ionization device to sound. Therefore the device must be a real smoke detector. What more was needed? Case is closed.

There was one more little problem to take care of. The fire inspectors needed a “smoke detector tester”. When they enter an apartment to test the smoke detectors it would not seem appropriate to light a fire in the living room to determine if the device was in working condition. And those nasty little purists were pointing out that to simply push a button to cause the device to sound was not enough. That still would not confirm that the entry of “smoke” into the detection chamber would initiate a warning. So the problem was solved with a vaporizing liquid within a can that looked like a bug spray. It was neat and one blast from the can assured a blast from the detection device. The inspector would enter the apartment during the day, most likely with the door opened by the lady of the house. He would give a short pep talk on fire safety, aim the spray at the ionization device and give it a shot. It would sound, he would assure the lady that the device would surely save her and the kids if a fire occurred and he would leave a very impressed home occupant behind. Sadly, if a real fire occurred a week later those two little darlings might well be history.

That spray can carried by the fire inspector, with the “Smoke Detector Tester” printed on its side, and with the UL Label printed right beside it, emits the perfect aerosols to cause the device to sound. But the fires that kill the children do not create the same particulate. You see, our protector of the children, Underwriters’ Laboratories, has put its stamp of approval on a phony smoke detector tester that has been engineered to test the phony smoke detector. Well, I guess it just goes to prove that if you are going to be crooked you might as well be crooked all the way.

If there is anything that UL has proven regarding its role in “certifying” a phony smoke detector is, if you start out with lies probably you are going to have to tell some more lies. I will list the lies told by UL as follows:

1. The early testing of the POC detector Which is not a smoke detector) was improperly interpreted to justify a “UL Certification” that the device was a reliable detector of both smoke and fire. Lie No. 1

2. When the makers of the ionization devices claimed, within the NFPA Fire Journal that their devices would warn the occupants of pre-fire conditions, the UL label, in effect was supporting the lies. By failing to warn the fire chiefs of the true performance capabilities UL helped market a deadly device to the public. Lie No. 2

3. When Richard Bukowski, an employee of UL, falsified the Dunes Report that was a “children killing lie. Lie No. 3.

4. Lie No. 4 was told when UL created a phony “smoldering fire test” to deceive the fire chiefs once again.

5. Lie Number 5 was the certification of a phony smoke detector tester to test the phony smoke detector.

So, it appears that Underwriters’ Laboratories told Lie No. 5 to conceal Lie No. 4 to cover-up Lie No. 3 that was conjured up to hide Lie No. 2 which became necessary because Lie. No1 was under suspicion.

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Since the initiation of this fraud during the mid-1960s I estimate that at least 70,000 fire deaths have occurred within homes supposedly “protected” with ionization type so-called smoke detectors. I figure the number of serious and often horrible fire injuries due to this fraud as about 5 times the deaths. This would make Underwriters’ Laboratories and the makers of the devices responsible for more than 400,000 wrongful deaths and injuries. The basic reasons for the corruption appear to be a combination of

great financial rewards plus an apparent belief that they could get away with the crimes. And for decades they have gotten away with what equates to mass murder for money.

Richard M. PattonProfessional EngineerRmpatton7@gmail.com