Health
on Today (posted on msn.com 12.21.12
Kitchen calamity: Reports of shattering cookware on the
rise
Courtesy
the Parker family
The
Parker family of Pontiac, Mich., is shown on Christmas Day 2010, minutes before
the clear glass baking dish at the head of the table shattered into hundreds of
shards, according to Debbie Parker. Parker, standing, said she found glass
pieces three feet away under the Christmas tree.
By
JoNel Aleccia, NBC News
Debbie
Parker of Pontiac, Mich., says she still can't shake the memory of Christmas
morning brunch two years ago when the festive egg casserole she baked in a
glass Pyrex pan "exploded" without warning on her holiday
table.
“There
was this loud crash. We looked to see the dish shattered with shards of glass
all around,” recalled Parker, 70, who said she found pieces three feet away
under the Christmas tree.
No
one was hurt, but Parker said she shudders even now at the thought of her young
grandchildren, then ages 1 and 5, who were seated at the table for the family's
traditional meal.
“It
was right at their eye level or face level,” she said. “We could have spent
Christmas Day at the hospital.”
Other
consumers say they have been hurt by suddenly shattering glass cookware,
including James Sinton, 29, of Houston. Medical records show that he needed
stitches in April 2011 to fix a gash on the inside of his right arm after he
said a large Pyrex measuring cup broke when he poured boiling water in it to
make tea.
“It
exploded. There’s no other way to describe it. It instantly became shrapnel,”
recalled Sinton, who said he slipped on the wet floor and landed on the glass
pieces, cutting himself.
Such
incidents are rare, but reports of glassware abruptly shattering have climbed
sharply in recent years, NBC News has learned. And a controversy is heating up
over whether the pans or the users are to blame.
Complaints
about the problem to the federal Consumer Product Safety Commission rose from just two in
1999 to 144 in 2011. That's a total of 576 during those 13 years, records show.
This year, 93 incidents had been reported as of mid-November.
Emergency
room reports collected in a federal database show that some
consumers claim to have suffered cuts to the face when glass pans broke as they
opened hot ovens, or claim they’ve been injured by spattering pan juices or hot
grease after dishes disintegrated.
At
the advocacy agency ConsumerAffairs.com, which posts reviews
about popular goods and services, the two top brands of glass cookware in the
U.S. -- Pyrex and Anchor Hocking -- have drawn nearly 1,600 reports combined,
mostly accounts of unexpected breakage, since the site began in 1998.
“This
is without a doubt the highest number of complaints about a single type of
cookware or kitchen accessory,” said Jim Hood, founder and editor of the site,
which has been reporting on the problem since 2005.
Sheer
volume might account for some of the complaints, considering that glass
bakeware is found in at least 80 percent of U.S. homes. World Kitchen, the
maker of U.S. Pyrex, produces more than 44 million dishes a year, company
officials say. Anchor Hocking makes more than 30 million pieces a year.
The
rise in reported incidents has raised new questions about the possible causes
of unexpected breakage during cooking. A recent article by two scientists at
the University of Alabama at Tuscaloosa suggests that today’s pans are more
prone to sudden shattering than your grandmother’s hand-me-downs.
But
World Kitchen officials have filed a trade disparagement lawsuit disputing that
article and claiming that the researchers used faulty science to reach their
conclusions. They say that any problems with shattering are rare, and that when
they do occur, it may be because consumers don't follow the directions included
with all cookware.
Pyrex
packaging
A
pamphlet with instructions about proper use is included with every Pyrex
product.
Many
cooks are surprised to learn that companies,
including World Kitchen and Anchor Hocking, have specific safety
rules for using glass bakeware.
In
instruction leaflets and even embossed on the glass pans themselves, the
companies stress correct use.
In
responses to complaints filed on the CPSC's SaferProducts.gov site, World Kitchen posts
these instructions:
· Always place hot glass bakeware on a dry, cloth potholder
or towel. Never place hot glass bakeware on top of the stove, on a metal
trivet, on a damp towel, directly on a counter or in a sink.
· Never put glass bakeware directly on a burner or under a
broiler.
· Always allow the oven to fully preheat before placing the
glass bakeware in the oven.
· Always cover the bottom of the dish with liquid before
cooking meat or vegetables.
People
who pull their pans out of the oven and set them on a “wet or cool surface”
such as a sink or a granite countertop -- found in more and more kitchens these
days -- risk sudden temperature changes that could induce shattering, glassware
companies say.
The
glassware makers also urge consumers to be careful with their pans; impact
accounts for far more breakage than heat changes -- and it also can weaken the
products, raising the chance of shattering, they say.
World
Kitchen officials said in a letter to James Sinton that an examination of his
broken measuring cup showed it may have been bruised by “banging” or
“dropping.” Sinton, however, said he’d just bought the glassware weeks earlier
and didn’t misuse it. World Kitchen didn’t analyze samples of Debbie Parker’s
broken dish, and they say they can’t be sure it even was Pyrex, according to
press reports after the incident.
Courtesy
Laura Lowe
Laura
Lowe, 47, of Evans, Ga., said her chicken dinner was ruined last December when
the glass baking pan she was using shattered suddenly inside her oven.
At
least one cook whose glass pan shattered suddenly last year said she had no
idea there were rules about use, especially for such a well-known brand.
“I
didn’t follow their directions, but it was Pyrex,” said Laura Lowe,
a 47-year-old piano teacher from Evans, Ga.
She
said it never would have occurred to her to add liquid to chicken in a baking
dish. She assumed that the new glass pans she used were the same material as
the pans passed down from her mother and grandmother under a brand once
advertised as “icebox-to-oven” bakeware.
Not
your grandmother’s Pyrex
There’s
no question that the glass pans made in the U.S. today are not your
grandmother’s Pyrex.
The
original Corning Inc. pans, invented in 1915, were made from a particularly
strong material, borosilicate glass. Virtually all glass bakeware sold in the
U.S. since the 1980s is now made of a different material, soda lime silicate
glass, said Daniel Collins, a Corning spokesman.
Company
officials say that soda lime silicate glass is better able to withstand impact
if banged or dropped and that it is better for the environment. Ceramics
experts also note that it’s cheaper than borosilicate glass.
Recently,
Richard Bradt and Richard Martens, the Alabama scientists, set out to explain
the increase in reports of shattering. They said they calculated the breaking
range for the glass used to make dishes in the U.S. today -- and compared it
with that for old-style glass used in original Pyrex.
Then
Bradt, a materials engineer, and Martens, an atomic probe microscopist, bought
six new glass pans in local stores -- three Pyrex, three Anchor Hocking -- and
tested them in Martens’ photoelasticity lab for signs of heat tempering, which
boosts the strength of glass.
“The
margin of safety … is borderline,” the scientists wrote.
That
conclusion, however, is hotly contested by the glassware makers.
“Anchor’s
tempered soda-lime glass bakeware has been in the marketplace for close to 30
years with an excellent safety and consumer satisfaction record,” spokeswoman
Barbara Wolf said in a statement.
World
Kitchen officials maintain there were errors in the researchers’ work, namely,
that they didn’t fully account for the company’s heat-strengthening process.
“The
Bulletin feature story contains serious flaws, inaccuracies and highly
misleading assertions and assumptions,” said Ed Flowers, the firm’s senior vice
president, in a statement to NBC News.
World
Kitchen, which acquired U.S. rights to the Pyrex trademark from Corning in
1998, is now suing the American Ceramic Society, the two researchers and a
publicist over the trade journal article. The company has demanded a
retraction, claiming that the scientists have launched a deliberate “campaign
of disparagement” against U.S.-made glass cookware, including Pyrex, according
to a complaint filed in federal court.
“Defendants
have purposely but needlessly frightened consumers into the false belief that
Pyrex glass cookware is unsafe for normal kitchen use and could pose an
unreasonable risk of serious injury to those who use it,” the complaint states.
Bradt
and Martens are standing by their conclusions. So is the American Ceramic
Society, which has refused to retract the paper.
Independent
ceramics experts who reviewed Bradt and Martens' paper for NBC News found it to
be fundamentally sound, though they said more testing was needed to affirm the
conclusions.
Glass
bakeware under fire
This
is hardly the first time that glass bakeware has come under fire. In
2010, Consumer Reports magazine
investigated complaints of shattering cookware by conducting
its own tests on borosilicate and soda lime silicate pans. In a dramatic video
demonstration, the magazine concluded that the newer pans, including those made
by World Kitchen and Anchor Hocking, were more likely to shatter under extreme
conditions than the original Pyrex.
Federal
safety officials who've looked into the problem say that while there have been
injuries, no deaths have been attributed to the unexpected breakage. There are
not enough cases to estimate how many people might be hurt in the U.S. each
year, said Scott Wolfson, spokesman for the CPSC. Wolfson wouldn’t speculate
about what’s behind the growing numbers. He said the agency analyzed the issue
in 2008, but found no cause to recall the glassware.
World
Kitchen officials described the Consumer Reports piece as “seriously flawed.”
As for the ceramics journal report, they say that Bradt had a conflict of
interest because he has served as a paid witness in lawsuits against makers of
glass cookware.
Bradt
acknowledged that he has been hired as an expert witness on behalf of clients
who brought lawsuits against U.S. glassware makers about the products in recent
years. He would not name any companies involved in those lawsuits, citing
confidentiality requirements. The cases were settled out of court, he said.
World
Kitchen also emphasized that each report to the CPSC is merely a consumer
complaint and has not been investigated or confirmed by the agency.
George
Quinn, a retired senior ceramic engineer with the National Institute of
Standards and Technology, reviewed the ACS paper for Bradt before it was
published. Quinn was among several peers in the ceramics field who reviewed the
authors' drafts.
“My
own professional opinion is that the thermal strengthening may not be adequate
for temperatures in the home kitchen,” he said.
He
said he handles glass dishes in his own kitchen “with extreme caution.”
“I’ll
set it down on a cloth or on a wooden block,” Quinn said. “I will put a towel
over the Pyrex as I am handling it, so if it should break, I will be
protected.”
Courtesy
the Parker family
Debbie
Parker preserved the shattered dish of egg casserole that she said 'exploded'
on her holiday table in 2010.
Debbie
Parker said she still uses the old Pyrex pans she got decades ago, but won't
buy new products.
Parker
says she is certain she followed all the rules for proper baking during her
holiday brunch. After the new pan broke, she wrote detailed records
about the timing, temperature and treatment of her glass Christmas pan.
Still,
she says, it shattered. When she complained to World Kitchen about her broken
Christmas casserole and the danger it posed to her family, she says the company
offered to send a new pan.
“They
wanted to replace it. I just laughed,” she said, referring to World Kitchen. “I
wouldn’t have another ‘new’ piece of Pyrex in my home.”
