Why where these dangerous camera units ever alowed for sale in 80's

In the 1980's when cameras where mainly sold to grocery stores because of the high costs involved . One of the more affordable company's to buy this product  from was Ultrak  which was a European manufacturer that has been bought and sold so many times it hard to figure out who owns the brand any more.
The cameras at the time where only Black &White back then and required 24 volts of AC voltage to operate  and had image tubes in them which needed replaced every 3-5 years  VCR's  Video Cassette Recorders at the time where available only as Time lapse units where they took pictures every 10-20 seconds  and produced very unremarkable  images .Multiple video cameras where displayed on a monitor one at a time  in a rotating fashion unlike today's multiplexers which allow as many as 32+ cameras to be viewed at once,  but it was state of the art for its time .

Camera was mounted on top bracket

One popular product in grocery stores was a fixed scanner unit which allowed a camera mounted on it to be rotated  a 180 degrees so a single camera could cover a wide area of course it always seemed to be in the opposite direction when something was going on . They fell out of favor as cameras went  to digital chips and where more affordable . Scanners could no longer be used as the constant back and forth on the digital chips and self focusing lens  wore them out quickly from constantly having to re adjust  unlike the old fixed lens tube cameras.
Primitive as this technology was thou it did manage to capture many shoplifters  and also caused as many lawsuits because of so much bad video. But that was just one of the problems with these old camera scanners. One day while installing a camera units scanner at a Shop n Save super market in New Kensington Pa. now a Save a Lot  after one was blown out by a power surge something also common back then  I hooked in the new scanner  with its rotating mount  in an aisle way  and main control box in the store office   and powered them up .I then went to check on the operation. It was hooked up with thin  22 # gauge low voltage  telephone  wire  but it was not moving I took off the wire nut to make sure wires where tight when I got a terrific electrical shock. . What the hell is going on this set up should only be 24 volts ac for scanner motor . Wrong I hook up my meter and find 120 volts ac something wrong here I then check the control unit yes 120 vac coming out of it. I look unit over no markings and get out the manual for it ends up Ultrak made 2 different models of scanners a 24 vac unit and a 120/230 volt unit both of which used small 22# gauge wire.I quickly took unit back and got a 24vac unit .  The  problem the 120/230 volt unit should never have been allowed to be imported and sold in the USA it is illegal to sell and install 120 volt equipment with out it being certified by UL or other 3rd party testing agency  per NEC 70 National Electrical Code  of course I started writing and making calls to get these units off the shelf but no agency ever lifted a finger to do anything about it and these units where allowed to work till they died and or where outdated by new cameras and scrapped. I highly suspect some where involved in supermarket fires when the thin low voltage only  wire carrying 120 volts on it deteriorated and grounded out  in fact the Shop N Save I worked in had a small  electrical fire .
Of course today we have the internet and a strong consumer protection agency today to stop this kind of nonsense but dangerous products as well as counterfeits are still making it to our shores so one must always be vigilant any time they buy anything electrical.