New York ? Consumer Reports was forced on Thursday to retract a damning report on infant car seats after the federal government said test crashes on the seats were conducted at drastically higher speeds than the magazine had claimed.

The revelation amounts to an embarrassment for the trusted consumer guide and a relief to parents who were frightened about their babies’ safety after the original report came out.

That report said most of the seats tested “failed disastrously” in crashes at speeds as low as 35 mph. In one test, it said, a dummy child was hurled 30 feet.

But the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration, which performed its own tests after seeing the report, discovered that some of the crash tests were conducted under conditions that would represent being struck at more than 70 mph.