It’s been quite a bad news week for babies and their parents — on the heels of yesterday’s recall of 200,000 baby pacifiers by Fred & Friends, Britax has announced it’s recalling 216,000 strollers over the risk of amputation. [More]
Quality & Safety
Recall Of 200K Pacifiers: While A Baby With A Mustache Is Cute, It’s Not Worth Choking Over
By 1.30.14
Look that baby! She’s got a mustache and a tiny little beard! Isn’t that just so adorable, because see, babies can’t grow facial hair and also she’s a girl? Sure, it might be cute, but the company behind three novelty pacifiers, Fred & Friends, has announced it’s recalling 200,000 over safety concerns. Namely, that a baby could choke on some of the parts included. [More]
Gree Adds 21 Models Of GE Dehumidifiers To Massive, Slow Recall
By 1.30.14
If you have a GE dehumidifier in your home, time to check the serial number: Gree Electric Appliances has recalled 350,000 dehumidifiers sold between April 2008 and December 2011 because they could potentially overheat and cause a fire. If this recall sounds familiar, it should: Gree already recalled 2.2 million dehumidifiers sold under brand names that you might recognize like De’Longhi, Frigidaire, and Kenmore. Customers have complained to Consumerist that this recall has been slow and crappy. [More]
Bodum Recalls Starbucks French Presses: Shattered Glass And Boiling Water Are A Bad Combination
By 1.29.14
Do you know what really doesn’t go together? A quart or so of boiling water, a plummeting glass container, and a lot of brown-colored, stain-tastic liquid. That’s been the terrifying result for some people who paid $40 for a pretty rose gold colored French press at Starbucks. [More]
12 Things You Should Keep In Your Car For Emergencies
By 1.29.14
Snowy, icy winters make for especially treacherous driving, so you usually see lists like this published when the first storms of the year hit. That’s not quite fair, though. Emergencies come up in any climate and at any time of year. You may not need all of them year-round, but here are a dozen things that can help you out in an emergency on the road. [More]
Cantaloupe Farmers Sentenced To Probation For Role In Deadly Listeria Outbreak
By 1.29.14
After pleading guilty to misdemeanor charges in October related to their role in the 2011 outbreak of listeria that killed about three dozen people, two cantaloupe farmers were sentenced to five years’ probation yesterday. That sentence includes six months in home detention. [More]
New From Cadbury: Milk Chocolate Bar With Wasp
By 1.28.14
How does a wasp end up embedded in a chocolate bar? Cadbury isn’t sure, and neither is the person who allegedly found the insect in his snack. [More]
Report: FDA Lets Farmers Use Antibiotics That Pose “High Risk” To Humans
By 1.28.14
Before it recently issued a “pretty please” to drug companies, asking them to voluntarily stop making billions of dollars off of unnecessary antibiotics sales to farmers, the Food and Drug Administration spent decades appearing to avoiding the topic. But a new report claims that the FDA actually spent 10 years internally reviewing the safety of dozens of antibiotics used in animal feed, drugs that the FDA’s own scientists said pose a high risk to human beings. [More]
Flushmate III Toilet System Recalled Because Toilet Explosions Are Very Bad
By 1.24.14
Words that you never want to see in close proximity to each other: “toilet,” “explosion,” and “shatter.” That’s why the Flushmate flush-assist system has been recalled, though: one of the welds in the system can break, shattering the toilet tank and posing an “impact and laceration hazards to consumers,” as the Consumer Product Safety Commission elegantly explains. [More]
January Food And Supplement Recall Roundup: Dairy Invasion
By 1.24.14
Undeclared dairy products seem to be showing up in lots of places where they aren’t wanted: candy, gluten-free bread mixes, and even dietary supplements. Welcome to the January Recall Roundup for edible items. [More]
Nutrition Facts Labels Getting First Makeover In Twenty Years… Eventually
By 1.24.14
Pick up any package of food at the grocery store, turn it around, and there it is: the ubiquitous, standardized nutrition label. It’s second nature at this point: we all know exactly what it looks like, and what we can expect to find listed on it. [More]
January Recall Roundup: These Pacifier Clips Really Suck
By 1.22.14
Big news in recall-land today: 1.25 million pacifier clips from Playtex recalled because they can crack, transforming them into a choking hazard. What other dangers might lie in our dressers, closets, pantries, garages, and refrigerators? Let’s find out. [More]
Ex Trader Joe’s President To Sell Food Past Its Sell-By Date, But Don’t Call It ‘Expired’
By 1.22.14
For months, grocery business watchers have been waiting for the eventual opening of The Daily Table, a store created by former Trader Joe’s president Doug Rauch that will offer food items beyond their “sell by” dates. The problem, says Rauch, isn’t getting the food, it’s convincing consumers that it’s safe to eat. [More]
Just A Friendly Reminder That Some Wart Removers Can Catch Fire
By 1.16.14
You know those over-the-counter cryogenic wart removers for removing the unwanted clusters of tissue? The FDA says that since 2009, it knows of 14 incidents in which these products have caught fire, doing harm to people and or their property. [More]
FDA Warns Doctors, Pharmacists Against Prescribing High Doses Of Acetaminophen
By 1.15.14
Even though many people pop Tylenols or slug NyQuil without thinking about the consequences, too much acetaminophen can wreak havoc on one’s liver. Today, the Food and Drug Administration has asked health care professionals to please stop prescribing and dispensing dosages of medicine that contain more than 325 mg of acetaminophen, saying the risk to a patient’s liver is higher than any additional benefit of the drug. [More]
Sears, Kmart Recall Kenmore Fan Heaters Because They Are Not Supposed To Catch Fire
By 1.15.14
While flames have long kept humans warm during cold weather, fire is not the intended output of a Kenmore heat fan. That’s why Sears and Kmart have recalled 43,000 of the fans and will be issuing refunds to customers who bought them. [More]
Consumer Reports: Recalled Calphalon Blender Is Safe With Blade Repair
By 1.14.14
Our ice-crushing colleagues down the hall at Consumer Reports have good news about the recalled Calphalon XL 9-speed blender. Once it’s repaired, the blade no longer blends itself and the appliance is now considered safe for consumers to use. [More]
Fitbit Force Is An Amazing Device, Except For My Contact Dermatitis
By 1.13.14
Between Christmas and the New Year, lots of Americans strapped on a shiny new Fitbit Force and started to scamper around. It’s the newest iteration of the motion-tracking device, a wristband that records steps, altitude, and how much you move around while you sleep. Now many of them have taken off their wristbands, reporting a weird skin irritation near the charging port. [More]
