The hot pepper linked to teen’s death can cause arteries in the brain to spasm.
Harris Wolobah’s cause of death is not yet determined; it’s not certain if the chip is to blame.
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?
What about my chipfork?
Or you know we can use common sense and respect that there is simply no way the chip didn’t at least contribute.
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.
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:
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.”
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
🤦♂️
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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.
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/
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.
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.
because age limits don’t work
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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.
‘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.
My favorite chip in the world are the Paqui Ghost Pepper chips. A tad too salty, but still delicious. I hope this doesn’t f*ck that up, even though they haven’t been in any of the markets for months. I just ordered a case off the internet just in case they disappear forever.
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.
I really want one of these chips now, thanks little buddy… your life was not lost in vain!!
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.
. They are prominently displayed. It is a stretch to call him a victim. The only exception would be if someone tricked him into eating the chip.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?
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.
Ever heard of the FDA?
