Plates, mugs recalled for chemical leaching

[unhappycamper]

Plates, mugs recalled for chemical leaching
By Karen Jowers - Staff writer
Posted : Thursday Dec 6, 2007 16:49:48 EST

Customers who bought “Debi Hron 12 Days of Christmas” coffee mugs and dessert plates at an Army and Air Force Exchange Service store in Europe or the Pacific should stop using them and return them to the store for a full refund because of lead and cadmium leaching, AAFES officials said.

Customers bought 190 sets of dishes that do not meet U.S. Food and Drug Administration guidelines for lead and cadmium leaching. Gibson Overseas Inc. told AAFES officials Dec. 4 that the dishes had been “inadvertently shipped” to the stores. Each set had 12 mugs or 12 dessert plates.

The items were sold from Sept. 30 through Dec. 4, when AAFES told its stores to pull them from the shelves. By that time, 51 sets of mugs and 69 sets of plates had been sold in Europe, and 25 sets of mugs and 45 sets of plates had been sold in the Pacific.

AAFES officials were “puzzled” by the notification, according to an announcement about the recall, because exchange service quality assurance officials had just received information from a laboratory Dec. 3 that five other styles of Gibson ceramicware that AAFES had randomly tested were found to be within FDA limits for lead and cadmium leaching. AAFES routinely sends products to laboratories for testing.

“While Gibson’s is a large supplier that provides lots of products to various retailers, this, fortunately, appears to be an isolated incident,” AAFES Quality Assurance Director Tom Rebman said in an announcement about the recall.


Rest of article at: http://www.armytimes.com/news/2007/12/military_mugplates_recall_071206w/