Problems with PYREX

For those of you who are using cool tubes made from a bake-a-round, i dont know if this is pertinent, but i felt it should be posted just in case. Dont know if its just the dishes or all pyrex but i'd hate for someone to get killed by this. Heres a link to the article or just read below:

cbs2chicago.com - A Problem With Pyrex

A Problem With Pyrex
Home Cooks Say Their Pyrex Dishes Exploded

CHICAGO (CBS) ― It's a staple in the kitchens of hundreds of millions of people. But some cooks say they have lost trust in the brand after their bakeware has shattered or exploded inside or outside their ovens.

CBS 2 Investigator Pam Zekman reports some people are now asking if there's a problem with Pyrex.

The Consumer Product Safety Commission forwarded to the 2 Investigators 66 complaints it has received over the last 10 years. We counted approximately 300 more reported over the last five years on consumer Web sites.

Some users say they were hit by flying glass.

"When it hitted me in the hand, I was crying, that's when I said, 'Mommy, I'm scared,'" said Julia Tuso.

Her mother, Gina Tuso, had just taken a year-old Pyrex casserole dish out of a 350-degree oven. She put it on the oven door.

"And when I turned my back to get a fork to flip the steak, I heard a loud explosion," Gina Tuso said

"There was glass scattered everywhere, from 10 to 15 feet away from where it happened in three separate rooms," said Joe Tuso.

Julia was sitting across the room at the kitchen table and was burned on her hand and neck by a piece of flying glass.

"She saved herself. She shielded herself by it hitting her in the hand," Gina Tuso said.

Gina Tuso called World Kitchen, the Rosemont-based company that makes Pyrex. She told a call-taker what happened.

"She said that maybe there was a hairline fracture in the pan," she said.

A hairline fracture Tuso did not see.

World Kitchen won't say how many complaints it's received. In letters, the company said the ones found by the 2 Investigators are a "very limited number of unsubstantiated complaints," compared to the 369 million pieces of Pyrex made by World Kitchen since it purchased the brand from Corning in 1998.

The company points out that government data for 2005 and 2006 show no one was treated in emergency rooms for injuries from shattered Pyrex.

And the CPSC "has never ordered a recall involving Pyrex."

Given all that, the company says, "There is no reasonable or valid basis upon which to conclude that Pyrex glassware poses a safety issue."

In fact, the CPSC told the 2 Investigators it does not consider Pyrex to be a safety hazard.

Try telling that to Gina Tuso.

"My daughter is hurt, you know, she was burned," she said. "But what if she was blinded?"

World Kitchen says most incidents occur when people don't follow the directions embossed on Pyrex and listed on labels that come with the bakeware. In complaints we reviewed, consumers sometimes did fail to follow instructions, which also warn that that could result in personal injury.

But some of the instructions on the labels seem vague and confusing. For example it says do not take a hot dish and put it on a cold surface. But what does that mean â?? a trivet, a countertop, a stovetop?

Cathy Carter is a teacher. She says she read the instructions carefully before making baked beans in a 350-degree oven.

"It says to avoid severe temperature changes. That's why I set it on the stove coming from the oven. The stove was warm and it wasn't on direct heat," Carter said. "Left it for five minutes and it just exploded!"

Glass and beans, she said, "probably flew at least a good three or four feet."

After she reported what happened to World Kitchen, the company sent an e-mail saying, "We do recommend placing your hot Pyrex dish on a potholder. That can absorb the heat from the dish. This will prevent any shock to the dish."

But that's not clear in the Pyrex instructions, which are buried in a list of dos and don'ts. One label says "do not add liquid to a hot dish or place dish on cold or wet surfaces, use dry potholders."

But for what?

The label on another dish says "handle all hot ovenware and glass covers with dry potholders."

But none of the labels for Pyrex dishes on store shelves we looked at say place hot ovenware on dry potholders.

"They need to explain it," Carter said.

The World Kitchen e-mail to Carter did explain she should not place a hot dish on a stove, whether it's warm or not.

"Your stove may not be considered a cold surface, however when you remove your dish from an oven that is heated to 400+ degrees and sit on a stove that may be 100 degrees it can shock the dish," World Kitchen wrote in the e-mail.

But that warning is not on the instruction labels that come with Pyrex.

"If I am trying to follow these directions and I think I have followed them, why would it still happen to me?" Carter said.

Charles Constance has other instruction issues. His Pyrex bakeware exploded in his hands after he took it out of the oven.

"One second it was, I was holding a solid glass dish and the next second I had hundreds if not thousands of pieces of glass all around me," Constance said.

Constance says a World Kitchen call-taker told him his 450-degree oven should have been no higher than 425.

"If that 425-degree limit is in fact the highest temperature I can use the dish at, Pyrex should be advertising that," Constance said.

That temperature limit was not on the Corning label for his Pyrex dish.

"She also told me that I should have put water in the dish sufficient to cover the bottom of it and up a little bit on the sides," Constance said.

The Pyrex label now says: "Add a small amount of liquid to the dish prior to baking foods that release liquids."

Constance and his wife, Donna, wonder if that means a tablespoon or a cup.

Again the label does not say.

"I've cooked for many years and I have no idea what that means," Donna Constance said.

World Kitchen says generally that Pyrex "bakeware comes with robust and specific warnings against misuse that could cause breakage."

It also did not comment on the consumers we interviewed for this report because they did not send their shattered bakeware in for examination by the company.

As a result, the company said there is "no way of knowing if there is any factual evidence to substantiate the incidents."

So what about the shattered bakeware World Kitchen has received for analysis? The company would only say: "The overwhelming majority of products returned either were not Pyrex brand products or were subjected to misuse that caused the breakage."

We have talked to several consumers who mistakenly thought their shattered ovenware was Pyrex, but most of those we talked to -- like Rosemary Harris -- feel certain their dish was Pyrex and thought they were using it as they were supposed to.

Harris says a Pyrex dish exploded inside her oven. Like others she wonders, "Is there a problem with Pyrex?"

World Kitchen has not responded to the 2 Investigators' repeated requests for an on-camera interview. It did commission a test to help prove to us that its product is safe. We'll have more on that tomorrow on CBS 2 News at 10pm. Plus we'll show you what happened when one of the experts we consulted performed a Pyrex test of his own.

The 2 Investigators would like to hear about your experiences with Pyrex. E-mail us here.

Click here to contact the manufacturers of Pyrex.Pyrex® Glassware - From Bakeware to Food Storage Containers

Click here to contact the Consumer Product Safety Commission.

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