COUNTYWIDE : Warning Issued Over Italian Tableware

The state health director is warning consumers not to use certain patterns of Italian glass tableware--sold in Orange County stores--because they contain more than 16,000 times the level of toxic metals allowed in tableware by the FDA.

“Eating off of these products or handling them could result in enough of the toxic metals being taken into the body (to) produce acute health effects such as abdominal pain, vomiting and diarrhea in adults and children, or possibly central nervous system damage in fetuses and small children,” Dr. Kenneth W. Kizer said Thursday.

The patterns Crackle Rim, Murrina Clear, Cracked Gold and Murrina Transparent Silver, which consist of dinner plates, soup plates, bowls, stemware, vases and ashtrays, were found to contain high levels of lead, cadmium and cobalt during tableware testing by the U.S. Food and Drug Administration in San Francisco.

The lead levels in the glassware went undetected since June because the FDA does not regularly check glassware, Patricia Ziobro, FDA lab director in San Francisco said Friday. “We never expected to find any problems with glassware.”

Ziobro explained that the lab concentrates on ceramic tableware because of its normally high lead content and ease with which particles can seep into food. “We run surveillance programs on all imported tableware, but can’t, by any means, analyze every piece.”

The amount of glassware imported and the amount already sold is not yet clearly known, said Jim Barquist, state food and drug scientist.

“The records from the importers are not real clear, and (the glassware) was sold as a collection,” he said.

Barquist said they contacted the manufacturer, SI-AN di Cioni & Busoni of Florence, Italy, three times by phone and twice by fax, but they have not responded to help locate other possible importers or reveal their manufacturing technique.

The glassware was first imported to the United States in June by R.H. Macy on the West Coast and Mariposa Imports on the East Coast.

Both are recalling the glassware from retail stores including Angies Gift Box, Santa Ana; Company’s Coming, Costa Mesa; RSVP, Tustin; Bullocks, under the Royal Gallery label, and various Nordstrom stores.

Although glass often contains lead, the lead is usually sealed in by a glaze, said Richard Jacobs, the lab’s supervisory chemist. However, an unidentified substance painted on the glazing appears not to have been fired at a high enough temperature to keep it from leaching.

The box of glassware might have gone unnoticed if it had not been mislabeled as ceramic tableware, Jacobs said.

Upon inspection, one of the scientists in the lab noticed some gold leaf on the glassware and tested it out of curiosity, he said.

When the glassware was exposed to acetic acids commonly found in food, he said they “got a very aggressive indication of leachable lead.”

“The whole pattern dissolves when exposed to vinegar,” Jacobs said. “We could detect it (the lead) on our fingers.”

The amount of lead that leached off the glass was as high as 16,700 parts per million, or about one-third of an ounce, he said.

The highest lead level permitted by the FDA is 7 parts per million. “I’ve never heard of such a high concentration.”

Jacobs said that they are not sure how the glass was manufactured or how widely the practice is used but that “I hope it’s just one incident.”