uIKEA Recalls SPELEVINK Crib Mattresses For A Second Time: Now It’s Flammabilityr

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  (CPSC)

  If you happen to own IKEA’s VYSSA SPELEVINK crib mattress, that means you’ve already missed two recalls of your kid’s mattress. Those were for potential entrapment: it was possible for the mattress to shift so that a child could become trapped between the mattress and crib frame. Now the Consumer Products Safety Commission reports another risk of this product: flammability.

  Depending on what source you check, mattresses dating back to the year 2000 or 2010 are part of this recall: the CPSC gives the earlier date, and IKEA gives the later one. However, it’s the CPSC’s duty to report that the SPELEVINK mattress failed an open-flame test, and the mattresses that still happen to be circulating can be brought back to IKEA for a refund.

  Perhaps you brought back your mattress during one of those previous recalls in January or May. Bad news: if you got a SPELEVINK replacement mattress, that mattress has now been recalled. This time around, customers get refunds instead of new mattresses.

  If you have any questions about the recall or whether your mattress is part of it, you can contact IKEA at 888-966-4532 or visit their official recall page.

  IKEA Recalls Crib Mattresses Due to Violation of Federal Flammability Standard [CPSC]

  
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by Laura Northrup via Consumerist

uPumpkin Spice Twinkies Are Real: So Are Cupcakes, Bread, And Dish Soapr

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• A few weeks ago, I asked why Hostess doesn’t make pumpkin spice cupcakes. It turns out that I should have known better than to ask such a ridiculous question: Hostess just hadn’t announced their pumpkin spice cupcakes yet. Of course there are pumpkin spice cupcakes with plain creme filling, and plain Twinkies with pumpkin-flavored filling in a strange shade of brownorange.

  The filling probably looks more appetizing in person. Meanwhile, in marketers’ continuing attempts to get pumpkin spice into every part of our diets during the fall, Arnold has made pumpkin bread with pumpkin seeds available, making it easier to spend your fall with something that includes pumpkin spice in every meal.

  

  While pumpkin spice soaps, body washes, shampoos, lotions, and so on are a staple, we had never heard of pumpkin spice dish soap. Until now. We can blame the grocery chain Giant for this nightmare.

  

  SPOTTED ON SHELVES: Hostess Limited Edition Pumpkin Spice Twinkies
  SPOTTED ON SHELVES: Giant Limited Time Originals Pumpkin Dish Washing Liquid

  
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by Laura Northrup via Consumerist

uLawmakers Call On USDA To Reduce Farmers’ Reliance On Antibiotics In Chickensr

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  (RW Sinclair)
  

  Following a 17-month outbreak of salmonella poisoning that sickened at least 600 people around the country, a Dept. of Agriculture advisory committee will meet tomorrow discuss strategies for effectively controlling the spread of salmonella in poultry. In advance of that meeting, two members of Congress are calling on the USDA to take a three-pronged approach to fighting drug-resistant bacteria.

  In a letter [PDF] to Brian Ronholm, the USDA’s Acting Under Secretary for Food Safety and the chair of the National Advisory Committee on Microbiological Criteria for Foods (NACMCF), Reps. Louise Slaughter (NY) and Rosa DeLauro (CT) point to “unacceptably high” levels of salmonella contamination and the “less than effective” control strategies currently in place, saying, “New approaches are long overdue.”

  The first new approach, is for the USDA to take a less hands-off approach to recalls involving salmonella-tainted chicken.

  While the USDA has authority to recall “adulterated” chicken, one of the roadblocks to actually issuing a recall for meat tainted with salmonella is that you’ll find at least some level of the bacterial pathogen in any raw meat poultry.

  The laws regarding adulterated beef and poultry include a loophole for alleged adulterants that are “not an added substance.” Since salmonella is commonly found in chicken the USDA has been reluctant to issue large-scale recalls, even when that pathogen is a variant that is resistant to multiple drugs.

  Reps. Slaughter and DeLauro are asking the USDA to “make clear that Salmonella, Campylobacter, and any multidrug resistant pathogens are adulterants and that contaminated products will be subject to recall.”

  If the USDA doesn’t take a harder line against drug-resistant bacteria, the legislators say it “will undermine efforts to institute stricter Salmonella controls.”

  The other thing the USDA can do is push for farmers to reduce their reliance on antibiotics for meat-producing animals.

  Antibiotics are often used in low-dose amounts for non-medical purposes because of their growth-promotion effects. Some proponents of antibiotic use claim that this continual sub-therapeutic deployment of the drugs is needed for disease prevention, but many scientists say this prophylactic approach to animal antibiotics only results in the development of drug-resistant versions of salmonella and other bacteria.

  “Recent research from Harvard Medical School has shown that antibiotic resistance also increases bacterial fitness and virulence,” write Slaughter and DeLauro. “These observations suggest it is time to reconsider the reliance on antibiotics in the poultry production system and also implement control strategies specifically effective against multi-drug resistant bacteria.”

  While we recently showed that it’s possible to cook beef to a temperature that is generally considered safe (without resulting in shoe leather), tests by our colleagues at Consumer Reports turned up some bacteria that produce a toxin that would not be destroyed through the cooking process.

  The representatives have introduced a bill to clarify that USDA has the authority to declare multidrug-resistant pathogens as adulterants so they can be recalled.

  In their letter, DeLauro and Slaughter, who is a trained microbiologist, say that too much burden is being put on the end-user to protect themselves.

  “Keeping Salmonella out of the food supply is a better approach than relying on processing steps to reduce the bacterial load,” explain the Congresswomen, who point to Denmark and its superior handling of Salmonella, primarily through “a bottom-up approach including better on-farm sanitation and improved barn design. Unless the U.S. adopts a similar strategy we must rely on much more aggressive monitoring and enhanced biosecurity.”

  
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by Chris Morran via Consumerist

uFred Meyer Kicks Off Christmas Decoration Season On Labor Dayr

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• While Alaska is closer to the North Pole than the rest of the country, that doesn’t mean that the Christmas season starts any earlier there than it does in the Lower 48. Unless, of course, you’re retailer Fred Meyer. Or does the Christmas season start on Labor Day everywhere now?

  

  

  Reader Kris sent along these photos, noting that the display of Christmas decorations is probably out because the store is “almost completely empty of Halloween products.” This could be because they sold out of those products, or because they’ve concluded that Christmas decorations are more important.

  PayPal tells us that the winter holiday shopping season starts at the end of September, but when does Christmas decorating begin? Labor Day, we guess, or whenever enough back-to-school supplies and Halloween candy sells out to free up an endcap.

  
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by Laura Northrup via Consumerist

uLufthansa Canceling 1,000 Flights On Wednesday Amid Pilot Striker

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  (Flying Photog)

  If you’re heading to Europe tomorrow, or if you’re there already reading this and you’ve got a Wednesday flight with Lufthansa, you’ll want to check in with the airline right about now: the German carrier announced it’s grounding 1,000 flights tomorrow — affecting 140,000 travelers — amid a pilot strike.

  The pilots union, Vereinigung Cockpit, kicked off the strike starting with long-haul flights on Tuesday, which forced Lufthansa to cancel 90 flights, the airline said today. The strike is extending to include medium- and short-haul flights on Wednesday.

  Subsidiaries Germanwings, SWISS, Austrian Airlines and Brussels Airlines aren’t affected, Lufthansa said.

  “Lufthansa deeply regrets the resulting inconvenience to its customers and will do its best to keep possible disruptions to a minimum,” the airline said, urging customers to check its website for updates on the travel situation. Customers who have flights canceled due to the strike can rebook or cancel their reservation without penalties.

  The 5,400 Lufthansa pilots are striking for a variety of issues; among those, they want the airline to continue to pay a transition payment for early retirees, notes the Associated Press, they’re against a restructuring of the airline.

  The union said on Monday that an offer it made to Lufthansa that included “vast concessions on a variety of issues” that could save more than 500 million euros had been rejected, and the airline’s counter-proposal was promising at first, but later deemed “insubstantial.”

  
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by Mary Beth Quirk via Consumerist

uCostco’s Online Photo Services Back Up After Breach, Customers’ Cards May Have Been Compromisedr

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  Costco officially relaunched its photo center site on Tuesday. [Click to enlarge]

  
  If you like viewing and ordering prints of your digital photos from the comfort of your own home and then traipsing to the local Costco to pick up your memories, then we’ve got good news: Costco has finally relaunched its online photo services website after taking the site down upon discovering a breach in July. But there’s also a bit of bad news: some customers’ credit card information may have been captured in the year-long hack.

  After delaying the relaunch of its photo site three times since it was revealed that online photo service management company PNI Digital Media was hacked, Costco announced today that customers can once again place orders for prints, postcards, greeting cards and other photo-centric products, and warned some users that their credit card information may have fallen into the wrong hands back in mid-July.

  “Let us begin by apologizing for all of the inconvenience, frustration and concern created by taking the Costco Photo Center offline,” the company said in a notice on its photo center page. “We recognize the value our members place on their memories, and we are very sorry for the lengthy downtime experienced on our site.”

  In a FAQ related to the relaunch of the photo site, Costco says that while photos weren’t compromised, “we believe that the credit card information of a small percentage of Costco members was captured.”

  The company says that although the investigation into the hack is incomplete, it’s believed that users who placed mail orders for home delivery through the site may have had their credit card information, mailing address, as well as username and password compromised.

  Those who placed orders for pick-up at Costco sores may have had their username and password compromised.

  The hack on PNI – which affected other retailers including Sam’s Club, CVS, Rite Aid and Tesco – took place between June 2014 and July 2015, when it was discovered, Costco says.

  Costco said on Tuesday that relaunching the photo center site took so long because PNI completely rebuilt the retailer’s operations to include security measures applied at a variety of levels.

  “Both Costco and our third-party vendor have been focused on quality and security,” the company says.

  As a continued safety precaution, Costco has only made consumers’ stored photos from 2014 and 2015 accessible; photos from 2013 and before will be available in the coming weeks.

  Additionally, the services’ mobile app is not available, but should be by late September, the company says.

  To mark the relaunch of its site, Costco is providing customers with a variety of discounts on photo prints and products.

  A quick look at the photo sites for other affected retailers shows they continue to be down.

  Back in July, PNI Digital Media – which is owned by Staples – announced it was the latest victim of a hack, with several retailers in the U.S., Canada and the U.K. temporarily shutting down their photo sites.

  Staples acknowledged that PNI was investigating a potential credit card data issue, but didn’t specify which retailers were affected.

  Still, Costco, Sam’s Club, CVS, Rite Aid and Tesco quickly took action to shut down their online photo sites after being notified by Canadian-based PNI of the possible breach or after hearing reports from other retailers.

  [via GeekWire]

  
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by Ashlee Kieler via Consumerist

uCustomer Who Ordered One Billionth Waffle At Atlanta Waffle House Nails It: “That’s A Lot Of Waffles”r

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  (lungstruck)

  Although there could only be one customer to earn the distinction of the person who ordered Waffle House’s one billionth waffle, all the customers at the Atlanta restaurant who witnessed the milestone on Tuesday did get to share in the celebrations, by way of breakfast on the house for everyone.

  Workers shouted “congratulations” when the one billionth waffle — apple crumb — was delivered to the lucky customer, reports WXIA-TV (warning: link has video that autoplays), along with balloons and a special plaque that will forever set her apart from the rest of us who’ve never ordered the one billionth anything.

  “That’s a lot of waffles made,” the customer told WXIA-TV. And she’s right — it is a lot, even if Waffle House is selling 145 waffles per minute, as the company claims: after all, it’s taken 60 years for that billionth Waffle House waffle to arrive.

  Along with her plaque and a story to tell at every social function for the rest of her life, she got a swag bag filled with Waffle House paraphernalia and, along with the rest of the restaurant, free breakfast.

  “We have such a loyal, loyal following,” Darren Jarrett, Waffle House Senior Vice President of Operations for Atlanta told WXIA. “Our analysts have been watching this billion-waffle mark for a long time. They gave us the word yesterday that it was going to happen around 10 o’clock today.”

  Who are these mysterious waffle-clock watchers? What does the waffle clock look like? How does it know when someone orders a waffle — is it listening? Can it hear our waffle whispers when we sleep? So many questions. So many waffles.

  Waffle House sells its one billionth waffle in Atlanta [WXIA-TV]

  
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by Mary Beth Quirk via Consumerist