The Lightbulb scare

Well we have been doing our best to save money. One of the steps we have taken is to replace all of our incandescent bulbs with the high efficiency bulbs. (except in our dimmers) They last longer and are supposed to use less energy. My biggest concern with these bulbs is the fact that they contain mercury. The last thing this family needs is to be exposed to mercury! But after reading the package I thought "as long as it doesn't break we're fine" Well now I am not so sure.
Last night I was swinging Gage in the basement. One of these high efficiency lights had burnt out but there are two lights so I hadn't changed it yet. While I'm down there I hear a "POP!" then the light comes on. I thought "oh its not really blown!" Then the thing starts to smoke terrible and has this awful smell. I immediately turned the light off and then took it out of the socket. I was a little freaked out. First I did not know what we were exposed to. Gage had been sleeping just under where the light was. Second...what if I had not been down there??? Could our house have burned down? I wasn't sure if it was the bulb or the socket, so I put a regular bulb in the socket and no problems.
I did a little research on the Internet and found out that this is evidently NOT an isolated incident. I was able to find about 12 other accounts of the same thing happening with the same GE bulb. I am going to write GE a letter, along with the Consumer Product Safety Commission. I do believe I will also write my congressmen because in the recently passed Energy Bill, it is written in there that by 2012 regular incandescent bulbs will be illegal to sell and they are pushing the energy efficient bulbs. I don't like not having a choice. And I'm not convinced that these bulb are not with our issues either.
I just wanted to warn all the readers of this blog. Do not leave your high efficiency bulbs on if you are not in the room.