Danger Everywhere
We all get those forwarded messages that warn us of dangerous products or activities. Some recent ones talked of exploding Pyrex dishes, dogs dying from being exposed to FeBreeze, microwave butter flavored popcorn being a health hazard; baby oil being harmful to babies, and gel candles being a fire hazard.
They have catchy subject lines in your email box but are they true? Some even shout “This is True” or it really did happen to a friend of mine. So how do you know what to believe?
At the bottom of the GlenbrookeNews front page, there is a black box with three headings, Recent Comments; Recent News, and Local Resources.
The last link under Local Resources is www.Snopes.com. This is one of the most comprehensive, up to date, fact checkers for urban legends and rumors.
Back to that exploding Pyrex, turns out some of it is true and some is false. If you go to Snopes and type in Pyrex, you will see the latest information. The various forms of the forwarded email are listed "Silvia opened her oven ......" then you see the status of the subject. For the Pyrex email:
It's true that glassware is subject to breakage due to thermal shock.
It's true that Pyres bakeware was originally made from borosilicate and is now it is made from tempered soda-lime glass. However,
It's false that Pyrex switched from borosilicate to tempered soda-lime glass when Corning sold the company to World Kitchen in 1998.
It's false that the Consumer Product Safety Commission determined Pyrex glass bakeware products unsafe.
It's false that the World Kitchen Company, current owner of Pyrex, is based outside of the United States or that all Pyrex bakeware products are manufactured in China.
Our lives are full of warnings. Make sure you don’t add to them unnecessarily by innocently forwarding wrong information.
Oh, what about dogs dying from being exposed to FeBreeze, microwave butter flavored popcorn being a health hazard; baby oil being harmful to babies, and gel candles being a fire hazard?
Check out all the details by typing in the key words in the search box on Snopes but the quick answers are:
Dogs and Frebreeze – FALSE
Microwave Popcorn Butter Flavor – Undetermined
Baby Oil – True
Gel Candles – True
2 Responses »
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You can't trust Snopes all the time. I have caught them in two errors.
That's great feedback. I know there are other fact-checkers too, and some are focused on specific topics. What sources do YOU rely upon? (and what were the errors on Snopes?)