Overlooked key words in the article BBM:
if it's not used properly, glass bakeware can suddenly shatter.
I moved out of my parents' house 30 years ago, and I've been using glass bakeware, including recently-purchased glass bakeware, all that time and I have never had anything like this happen. Nor did my mom before me with her glass bakeware as far as I recall.
The article says "the Consumer Product Safety Commission says that, from 1998 to 2007, almost 12,000 people went to emergency rooms for treatment of injuries from glass bakeware that was dropped and broken or shattered during use."
For crying out loud. ANY piece of glass, bakeware or not, even a baby food jar, that is dropped and shatters during use may cause injuries.
The real question, which I do not find the answer to in the article, is how often this glassware shatters
for no apparent reason during proper use. All the article says about the CR testing is:
"In one test, they were baked in the oven on high heat, and placed on a wet countertop, something that is not recommended when using glassware."
Well duh.
If CR was testing lawn mowers, would they have subjects stick their hands into the blade mechanism while the machine was running, leading them to issue a lawn mower alert that was reported in the media with the words, "In one test, subjects stuck their hands into the blade mechanism while the motor was running, something that is not recommended when using lawn mowers?"
But I digress. Let's look at some numbers.
Let's say for the sake of argument, since we don't know for sure from the article, that 80% of those 12,000 ER visits over a 9-year period were not due to the glass shattering upon being dropped but rather due to sudden shattering for no reason. A conservative estimate to be sure since I strongly suspect that more glass bakeware is shattered from dropping than explosion.
That's 9600 injuries divided by 9 years = 1066 injuries/year = 88 injuries/month. That number spread out across the 2 to 3 million population of the US, I'd say the chances of receiving such an injury are miniscule to say the least. Far less than your chances of dying in an automobile accident. (And note the article does not mention any actual deaths.)
Bottom line IMO: If you want to be safe, use your bakeware properly but stay off the freeway.