| Author | Message | ||
     P47b |
To start off with, what are they going to do with the boxes when they get them back??? http://www.nydailynews.com/life-style/health/radio active-tissue-box-holders-yanked-bed-bath-shelves- article-1.1005746 Radioactive tissue box holders yanked from Bed Bath & Beyond shelves The metal boxes contained small amounts of cobalt-60, which can cause cancer}} We’ll stick with a plain old box of Kleenex. The New York State Dept. of Health yanked several tissue boxes off Bed Bath & Beyond shelves after they were found to be radioactive. The Dual Ridge Boutique metal boxes were found to contain small amounts of cobalt-60, which can cause cancer with prolonged exposure. The “brushed metal” tissue boxes were found contain the toxic ingredient after a shipment bound for California stores set off alarms at a truck stop. State Health Commissioner Nirav R. Shah, confirmed that the boxes were removed from the shelves at four Bed, Bath and Beyond stores in New York State, claiming that they were never a threat to the public. While New Yorkers may never had been exposed to the tainted tissue box, other shoppers may have been. Bed, Bath and Beyond have reportedly pulled the product from their sales floor and has issued a full recall as well as offers of a full refund. "The State Health Department and other state agencies are working closely with the Nuclear Regulatory Commission, Bed, Bath & Beyond, and local health officials to ensure consumers are safe," said Commissioner Shah. NRC spokesman David McIntyre told the Associated Press the danger of keeping one the boxes on a bathroom vanity and spending about 30 minutes a day near it for a year would be the equivalent of a couple of chest x-rays. “There’s no real health threat from these, but we advise people to return them,” he said. He confirmed it was only one shipment that contained the contaminated products. The products were shipped from India through the port of Newark. While Bed Bath & Beyond couldn’t confirm what kind of metal the box was made of, the radioactive element cobalt-60 has been found in stainless steel products. Cobalt-60 is used to detect structural flaws in metal parts as well as in product sterilization, according to the EPA. | ||
| Hughlysses |
I read a story many years ago about a similar but worse incident, involving radioactive patio furniture. Apparently this was in the 1960's, and a lot of scrap metal was being processed in Mexico. One of these items turned out to be an old X-ray machine, which contained a significant quantity of radioactive material (also Cobalt-60 IIRC) that was used as the radioactive source. The scrapyard basically ground the whole machine up and used the metal in a mix making rebar. This radioactive rebar was then used in the making of patio furniture, which made its way back into the U.S. I forget exactly how they discovered it, but investigators worked backwards from the patio furniture to the scrapyard in figuring out the source of the radioactive material. IIRC some of the scrapyard workers had received dangerous, if not lethal doses of radiation by the time the mystery was solved. |
