Ice pack recall

[Chickadee]

Blue Healer hot/cold reusable ice packs have been recalled. They contain toxic ethylene glycol rather than the non-toxic ingredient propylene gylcol.

If yo have any please return to the purchaser for a full refund. The customer service info line is (07) 5447 5579

[nmella]

Blue healer is only one of the 22 gel hot/cold pack products that have been recalled. If you have any of these gel packs at all, keep them away from your kids they are potentially deadly.

[bubhub]

I have a statement from Blue Healer that I'm going to post here...

<base href="file://C:%5CUsers%5CDonald%5CAppData%5CLocal%5CMicrosoft% 5CWindows%20Mail%5CStationery%5C"><style>BODY { BACKGROUND-POSITION: left top; MARGIN-TOP: 125px; FONT-SIZE: 10pt; MARGIN-LEFT: 25px; COLOR: #000000; BACKGROUND-REPEAT: no-repeat; FONT-FAMILY: Arial }</style>
Dear Hilary,

We are a husband & wife team manufacturing Blue Healer gel pack products in Queensland, having bought the business in October 2007. We had been verbally told that the product was non-toxic, the packaging stated that it was non-toxic and as it was sold as a TGA (Therapeutic Goods Administration) Approved Class 1 medical device, we had no reason to believe otherwise. The ingredient used by many gel pack manufacturers including Blue Healer to prevent the gel from solidifying in the freezer was mono ethylene glycol and this was stated on our label. Therefore we assumed that this been seen by the TGA (the government regulator of medical devices) when approved.

In August this year a child was hospitalised after chewing on another brand of gel pack and becoming very ill. As a result the TGA requested product samples from all registered sponsors of gel packs. We submitted a sample as directed and were told that our sample contained greater than 2% ethylene glycol. Because of this, the packaging should state that it contains poison and the pouch needed to be made from a more durable material. This was a severe blow to us as it is our sole source of income and we were unaware of the poison status of ethylene glycol. Apparently ethylene glycol has been used in gel packs for about 30 years so there were several other companies who had to recall their products (see medical devices www.tgarecall.gov.au ). After we were advised by the TGA that our product contained the toxic ingredient ethylene glycol, we voluntarily recalled our products. Since then we have procured a non-toxic ingredient called propylene glycol to replace ethylene glycol and this time it has been tested and approved by the TGA as meeting with all of the relevant Essential Principles. We have attached a certificate issued by the TGA indictating this.

For your readers' information, our new product label has


a red border
carries the green & gold Australian Made symbol
has a 0-3 yrs warning symbol on the back

and the packs themselves have a date stamped into the seal. A sample of our new label is also attached.

I hope that this goes some way to assure your readers that we take safety very seriously and have done all we can to make our products safe. For that reason we ask that you please give Blue Healer products a go.

Thank you for the opportunity to bring your readers up to date with our products. I understand if you need to edit the following but I felt it important for you and your readers to understand the whole situation surrounding the recall of many hot/cold gel packs.


Kind regards

[lizzymcfizzy]

Blue healer is only one of the 22 gel hot/cold pack products that have been recalled. If you have any of these gel packs at all, keep them away from your kids they are potentially deadly.

so all brands are toxic??