Teen’s death after eating a single chip highlights risks of ultra-spicy foods
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arstechnica.com
The hot pepper linked to teen's death can cause arteries in the brain to spasm.
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Maybe, just maybe we should put our pitchforks away until we know if the chip mentioned is responsible?
But... my pitchfork?
Are you saying we shouldn't put all our chips in one basket?
Or not to count the chips before they hatch?
No. On the Internet, all human events occur in the 68% range.
Or you know we can use common sense and respect that there is simply no way the chip didn't at least contribute.
Common sense is waiting for an official diagnosis from a certified professional investigating the actual body for the cause of death.
Not speculation from people on the internet that haven't even seen the body.
Nah, mate. Knowing something you didn't even bother to learn is the definition of common sense, which I made up myself.
You....yeah, I like you. You're alright. Here, hold my pitchfork so I can light my torch.
Uh, I mean, you can die at any one time without anything directly causing it. So no, it's not necessarily common sense.
And spicy foods, even very spicy ones, are consumed daily without too much medically bad happening.. certainly not more than, say, eating peanuts.
This chip isn't merely "very spicy food", it is explicitly designed to be a challenge. One single chip costs $10 and the packaging is literally shaped like a coffin.
That kind of iconography and style is common for chilli sauces.
Is it the chip's fault if this turns out to be an allergic reaction or something like that?
If such a reaction is remote, yet foreseeable to the manufacturer, the severity of the reaction (death) dictates a warning. It is a known, material risk, and the burden of warning is outweighedby the severity of the harm.
There's no warning on the package that it could result in death. The maker could be sued in products liability for negligent failure to warn.
There was a good case in Mass. against Tylenol. One possible reaction of Tylenol is that your skin could melt and fall off (not even really exaggerating). Very remote possibility, but so, so severe. Manufacture knew it was possible, didn't warn because it was so remote. But such a serious injury makes the risk material to a consumer, and so there's a duty to warn.
So I think this is the problem, the packaging says only for adults (these kids were obviously not adults), not for those sensitive to spicy food or with allergies to what I can assume are the main ingredients.
I know disclaimers are a bit woolly as to what can stand up in court, but what more should they have put:
It's only Naga and Reaper. Those are hot chillis, but I regularly cook with Reapers at home, they're not going to kill anyone on their own.
Perhaps something like "this food may cause severe gastrointestinal distress or internal bleeding, which may contribute to pulmonary distress, which in some cases may lead to heart attack, stroke, or death."
There's currently no reason to think any of that happened. Cause of death - unknown.
Is this one of those same anti-science, know-nothing takes like those that were too dumb to understand how COVID positive patients that died of heart attacks were legitimate counted as dying from COVID?
Have you ever eaten anything spicy? Did it not provoke an instantaneous physiological response? Sweating? Urinary urgency? Tachycardia? Tachypnea? Erythema?
Capsaicin is neurotoxic, a sufficient dose will kill you. In a sensitive person, or person with pre-existing conditions, a hot chip can definitely be the thing that overwhelms a person. Maybe the chip was the straw that broke the camel's back, in law and medicine, that's causal.
Drop the ad hominem attacks.
Yes, a sufficient dose of anything generally does. What's your point? The fact that millions of other people eat spicy foods at these levels and survive would indicate that no, this is not about the dose in general.
I'm Asian. We inhale spicy food. No, I don't recall Asians dying of eating something spicy. If they were sensitive (read: allergic), that's on them to know their own allergies. We don't blame peanut butter because people die after eating it.
o.O You had to scientifically blather about every other condition, but couldn't use diaphoresis? For shame, little dude.
Covid was a new virus that popped up in 2019, chilli peppers are ingredients we've been cooking with for thousends of years. We're well aware of their effects.
Yes it's a nuero-toxin, but it takes a lot to kill you. There's sauces out there that are millions of scovilles higher than either of the chillis in these crisps, as they're made with extracts and people eat them without dying all the time.
It doesn warn if gastrointestinal diestess on the left if you look "abdomen attack". The other stuff you have listed is nonsense and spicy food doesn't cause that.
Okay pal.
A warning would help sales too.
Arguably. Fools and their money, etc.
Headline: a single chip killed someone!
Article: the cause of death has not been determined
🤦♂️
Most annoying is how much the damn post has been upvoted
Thanks, that was my understanding, was wondering if I missed something
I can almost guarantee it wasn't the chip itself that did anything, but some underlying condition the kid already had that was exasperated by the spice. Perhaps even an allergic reaction. The media is blowing up on this without even knowing the actual cause of death.
Pretty fucken disgraceful if you ask me. Take a tragic accident, turn it into clickbait, and use it to drive traffic to your “news” site to get more eyes on your bullshit advertisements.
God I fucking hate this planet.
Yeah, as a hardened chillihead I've done extensive reading on the fruits and no where is risk of death ever listed as an issue.
Dragon's Breath and other extremely spicy peppers are definitely labeled with warnings that they can cause severe anaphylaxis and death by choking.
The media spins that a lot tho. The scientists that cultivated the Dragon Breath pepper and tested it on the scoleville scale gave it a typical boilerplate allergy warning; news spins that as "worlds hottest pepper is LETHAL."
Still no proof capsaicin caused the death. I'm eagerly awaiting for what the autopsy unveils
Also no proof it didn't... also interested to see what the autopsy unveils
There's no proof aliens didn't shoot him with an invisible laser... also interested to see what the autopsy unveils
Gonna be real mad if this ends up making it harder to get hot stuff. Don't push your limits folks, but don't restrict others.
Do you buy your hot food in specifically TikTok friendly, coffin shaped packaging explicitly labed as a challenge?
Let's hope they regulate greedy marketing not food sales.
Spicy challenge products have been sold like this since before TikTok was a thing.
Unfortunately that's significant element of that niche culture. Pushing your limit and proving just how spicy you can go is the point for most of them.
No. It just highlights the stupidity of people following online challenges.
Apart from that, those chips were labeled 18+, IIRC. How the heck did they get into the mouth of a 14 year old?
The backside is clustered with warnings: https://i.imgur.com/Uh2jEl7.png
No warning that it might cause death though.
https://www.justia.com/products-liability/types-of-products-liability-claims/failure-to-warn/
So may peanuts, but I don't think we should label peanuts with "may cause death"?
There are too many nuances and exceptions to everything for such a warning to be meaningful. Most things can kill you, doesn't mean they will unless you got some other medical condition or do something unreasonable.
Probably because unless you're 1 out of several million people that have eaten the chip, you aren't going to die because you ate something spicy.
The packaging is in the shape of a coffin
It also says "face the Reaper" and "any last words?" Guess they need to be more explicit and add an asterisk that says "face the Reaper*"
*seriously this chip will kill you
Or at least not mocking it.
Look at the label "what to expect."
Your eyes swelling shut is called "viper hypnosis." Severe stomach cramps is like "stomach ouchies" or something, with an image of little guy curled up on the floor.
It's designed for proper chilliheads to test their mettle, anyone experienced with spicy food should be well aware of what to expect already.
Oooo, I like that argument. Any law students, here's a note topic for you.
Especially in this case, labeling something 18+ is just a marketing gimmick that makes it more likely for it to be eaten by 14 year olds.
There are no legal restrictions on selling it so someone will sell it, and it appearing "forbidden" makes it more attractive.
There isn't in your place? What a lawless hellhole. Are kids allowed to buy booze and smokes, too?
because age limits don't work
I'm fine if an adult wants to take this kind of risk, but this kid died and other kids have been hospitalized. We protect children from all sorts of other risky things that we allow adults to purchase. I don't think we should allow children to purchase this.
No, it won't stop kids from getting ahold of it sometimes. We can't stop kids from getting ahold of alcohol and cigarettes all the time either. We should still make it as hard as possible for them to get it until they're adults- although I think 16 should be the drinking age and 18 the driving age, but that's another story.
From my understanding, this is the first case of actually serious consequences, and I'm sure millions of these chips have been eaten by now.
We need more stupid challenges that cause only pain but no serious, long term injury. It's a good way to learn not to do stupid challenges, keeping kids away from the stupider ones that are more likely to do permanent harm.
I mean... the other way to learn to not do stupid challenges is to just not have stupid challenges because they're stupid and we explain that they're stupid.
I've heard that no matter how often you tell a kid the stove is hot and will burn them, they won't stop trying to touch it until the pain has taught them. Not sure if it's true (or true for all kids), but I would expect the other side of that ("once they've burned themselves, they learn") to be mostly reliable.
What exactly do they learn out of this? Not to eat single chips that are super spicy? I don't get the lesson.
Don't do stupid shit because the Internet tells you it's a challenge.
The next time it may not be a chip but a tide pod. Or "crystals" made by blowing bubbles with a straw into a bucket of bleach and vinegar (the blowing makes sure that the victim takes a deep breath of the World War 1 gas warfare recreation they just mixed up).
I'm going to do the laying still in traffic challenge because the Russian Roulette challenge isn't cool anymore
I hate that a corp saw people organically having stupid fun with stupid dare fads, something humans have been doing forever, and they made a product out of it.
I'm confused about this whole idea that kids will learn from this. I don't understand the lesson.
Dolla dolla bill
Problem is that kids start out dumb until the learn stuff.
I talk to some of my aunts and uncles from pre-internet and I’m not sure how they survived the stupid stuff they did.
I'm 46. I'm pre-internet. I did stupid shit. But not as stupid as the shit kids are doing now. I did things like walk through a bunch of poison ivy and thorn bushes because they were at the edge of the field and recess was boring.
I feel like that's more likely to kill someone than hot chip.
'The chip was only intended for adults'. I know there are plenty of adults that adore a challenge of spice foods. My experience in marketing tells me these people knew exactly what demographic they'd be hitting hardest with this type of challenge.
I really want one of these chips now, thanks little buddy.. your life was not lost in vain!!
The effects on blood pressure are well known, but that it can cause spasm of arteries is interesting.
Many people eat lots of spicy food daily and I never heard of serious health issues. Especially a single chip might contain a concentrated amount of capsaicin, but it is unlikely to contain much more in volume then a hot plate of chili con carne or even just a hand full of raw jalapenos. So I assume it is some underlying condition and a shock reaction and not the capsaicin itself.
I would love to see more research into this.
It contains some of the spiciest peppers in existence, with a rating of well over a million Scoville. Jalapeños go up to a rating of ~8000 Scoville.
It's incredibly spicy.
I could have also picked a habanero which is admittedly a lot more spicy and it used to be the hottest pepper in the world, but it usually doesn't cause a big reaction either.
Anyway, that's missing the point. I was talking about the total amount of capsaicin which can't be really high in just one chip. It is just a tiny amount of concentrated capsaicin and I believe that people usually consume more with a regular spicy meal. Hence my believe that not the capsaicin itself is the problem.
Yeah, but they sell sauces that go well above those chillis scoville ratings made with extracts that people eat all the time without dying.
I did the challenge two days ago. It was the third spiciest I’ve had. Was definitely something that could do harm to someone who doesn’t know how to handle ultra-spicy. The kid won a Darwin Award. You can’t ban spicy food nor should you. This is a parenting issue. If this kid didn’t die from this skull and crossbones coffin wrapped in warnings, it would have been some other TikTok challenge like drinking bleach.
Random fact, but children under 16 are not eligible for Darwin Awards.
https://darwinawards.com/rules/rules4.html
Also, I find it interesting that you are basically insulting this kid for doing something stupid while saying you did it in the same paragraph. I guess you are not stupid because it didn't kill you?
The "please pick up your kid they passed out" should have signalled to the parents to maybe visit a doctor. Maybe the mom deserves the award.
The instructions state that it is for adults only. I essentially have body training in handling extreme spicy. At 14, you are considered a man in most societies. Why should we wussify American youth? At that age, I was eating habaneros. I blame the parents for not introducing him to spicy food and allowing him to make an informed decision.
The 14 year old ate the chip at school, there's no mention of who gave the chip to him. It's a school administration problem, but hardly a parenting issue unless the mother bought the chip for her son and sent it to school with him. The mother came to pick the boy up right away when he complained of pain, rushed him to the hospital when he lost consciousness, and she is now speaking out to warn others about the dangers of this stupid challenge.
You can't ban spicy food but this kid should have known it would kill him. Good take...
The warnings were all over it.
Warnings of what? Which warning would have made risk clear? Death imagery is part of their marketing not a legitimate warning. The kid eating a commercially sold food item is not on the same level as drinking bleach. It's weirdly cold and callous victim blaming to say that he was so stupid that he would inevitably die in some similar way. It rings the same as the people that scoff at the McDonalds coffee thing. Yeah you shouldn't ban hot coffee but you probably should ban serving coffee hot enough to cause third degree burns.
And which of those so you honestly think puts it on par with driving bleach?
The keep out of reach of children and the adults only warning. Also, the thousands of videos online of people showing how hot the chip is or even ones of kids his age eating it and resulting in an ambulance trip. It wasn’t even the hottest thing that I’ve eaten honestly, but it was enough to make most people have a very bad time. The hottest natural thing that I have eaten was hot sauce prepared by the founder of Halal Guys many years ago when he worked at the original location. He called it a bad batch because it was too strong. The hottest extract was the hot wing challenge from The Mean Fiddler. This was third, but ranked closely with quite a few others.
Honestly you think keep out of reach of children on a food item is the same level of warning as not drinking bleach?
At what point do companies have an obligation to save someone from themselves? There's ample warning on this package that he shouldn't have been eating it at his age or experience with spicy foods. There's a possible argument the shop that sold it to him or his peers is at fault, but there's not much more the manufacturers could have done to warn him off.
Listing the reason why they have those warnings seems pretty reasonable. That way kids could know that it's not "some nanny state bs". The verbage of those warnings is on par with "this is unhealthy if you do this" not "this is potentially lethal if you do this". So again, honestly, how is it as stupid as drinking bleach?
Pretty much.
The verbage of those warnings is on par with “this is unhealthy if you do this” not “this is potentially lethal if you do this”. So again, honestly, how is it as stupid as drinking bleach?
I wonder if the verbiage is that way as well. I think that a requirement for warnings on super spicy food have never been codified into law. Certain challenges make you sign a waiver, but that is just because restaurants don’t want a customer attempting to claim that the restaurant is somehow liable for ambulance costs if someone feels too uncomfortable. Since the inception of the country, there has never been a need to regulate spicy food. The FDA exists and has not made guidelines that limit access to spicy products. If they did, there would be very large protests. It would be an issue for many different cultures, which allow their children to eat spicy from infancy upwards. I remember my first hot pepper. Spicy food is part of many ethnic identities. You can’t just throw up the gauntlet because one kid has died in the thousands of years that spicy has been a thing. That kid had some other issues at play. The chip hurts, but it doesn’t kill. The fact that he felt better later on and then lost consciousness screams that this uncovered something else that could have been triggered under many other circumstances, but the chip provided the lynch pin stress.
I think you are missing a few common sense points here. When since the inception of the country did manufacturers start using chemical processes to artificially spice foods to orders of magnitude higher than what naturally occurs? This is a new process and a new problem. If the FDA made limits to access of spicy food it wouldn't be all spicy foods and it wouldn't be all levels of spice. There would be no large protests because the actual amount of foods impacted would be miniscule. I respect that spice is an important part of culture and identify but I think that because it is a part of your identity you are not taking a clear objective look at it. Addressing this problem isn't an all or nothing situation, it's just the unnatural new extreme products that are the issue.
Yes
Tragic. This sort of thing should not be sold. Or at least require them to be an adult.
It's a gradient, right? And there probably should be a line somewhere. A line where on one side is considered generally safe and the other side should be considered risky. If this needs regulation, how do we define the line, and what sort of limit should be put on it?
In all the years of super spicy food existing on this planet, there are almost no deaths reported. He had some other undiagnosed health issue for sure. Waiting on the autopsy.
You're the only person asking my opinion about it - but I would generally be in favor of having a panel of qualified doctors, food scientists with published work in this field, and lawyers with experience in prosecuting food industry malfeasance to undertake a review of the case history and risk factors to propose a generally reasonable legal framework for what is an acceptable health risk for the general public, whom is most vulnerable and how the risk can be mitigated at point of sale, how those metrics can be rigorously upheld by the food industry, and what should be done with companies that fail to comply.
That sounds like what should happen in a world where a corn chip can kill a child.
We know that a child ate a corn chip and the child later died. We don't know that the child died as a result of eating the corn chip. If we believe that policy should be based on evidence and not on anecdote it seems reasonable to wait for an investigation before we apportion culpability.
Ever heard of the FDA?
Like the big "only for adult consumption" warning he ignored on the back of the box?