Bests & Worsts Reviews from Amazon

The name Pyrex as well as Anchor Hocking are names we all have associated with quality glass products used in the kitchen for many years. What a shock when this very cup exploded in my microwave yesterday. Fortunately no injuries - just a mess to clean up. Wow is all I can say. I have had the cup for several years and use it daily to heat water for tea, and never quite to boiling. WOW!!! So I took it upon myself as a consumer to find out what was the problem. Would you believe this has happened to thousands of others? Let me tell you why and refer you to the January 2011 Issue of Consumer Reports beginning on page 44. It does a much better job of explaining the problem than I could ever do. Below is a quick summary of what I have discovered. Apparently about 12 years ago Corning sold its Pyrex name and manufacturing operations to company called, "World Kitchen". Who knew? Well according to the in depth article they switched the glass from something borosilicate to a much cheaper to produce glass known as lime soda. There have been THOUSANDS of documented cases of Pyrex cookware literally exploding sometimes causing serious injury over the last 10 years. Our government is very aware of this problem yet no warnings or action has been taken to protect the innocent public consumer. So what else is new? I can think of many things from tainted meat and eggs to lead contaminated toys from China that we have been subjected to in the last few years. This is just one more. So now if you have gone this far you are now fully aware of the problem. If you choose to ignore what has happened to Pyrex and Anchor Hocking products then as they always say, "Let the buyer beware". From reading the article I have found that a safe product does exist on the market. It is produced by a French company called Arcuisine. More money of course. But I don't want anything exploding in my hands or into my face made of glass, so I guess I must pay the price to be safe. Now you know why the Pyrex products are so cheap - and they aren't produced in China - or are they? According to the article all manufacturing for Pyrex products is done in Charleroi, PA. But now I'm even suspicious of that claim. After all China is a much cheaper place to manufacture most things. And who would know? Let the buyer beware. Your government is not going to protect you.