360
submitted 1 year ago by deconstruct@lemm.ee to c/news@lemmy.world

Paqui, the maker of extremely spicy tortilla chips marketed as the “One Chip Challenge,” is voluntarily pulling the product from shelves after a woman said her teenage son died of complications from consuming a single chip.

The chips were sold individually, and their seasoning included two of the hottest peppers in the world: the Carolina Reaper and the Naga Viper.

Each chip was packaged in a coffin-shaped container with a skull on the front.

Lois Wolobah told NBC Boston that her 14-year-old son, Harris Wolobah, ate the chip Friday, then went to the school nurse with a stomachache. Wolobah said Harris — a sophomore at Doherty Memorial High School in Worcester, Massachusetts — passed out at home that afternoon. He was pronounced dead at the hospital later that day, she said.

Until sales of the product were suspended, Paqui's marketing dared people to participate in the challenge by eating a chip, posting pictures of their tongues on social media after the chip turned it blue and then waiting as long as possible to relieve the burn with water or other food.

The challenge has existed in some form since 2016.

you are viewing a single comment's thread
view the rest of the comments
[-] GiuseppeAndTheYeti@midwest.social 14 points 1 year ago

These things aren't tested for safety in any way.

What the fuck are you talking about? Have you not heard of the FDA? 😂

[-] DrMango@lemmy.world 5 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago)

Yeah I suppose that statement was a little broader than it needed to be. Since you can't seem to pick up on context clues, I'll spell it out for you: the FDA is not going to put every single food product to market through rigorous testing like you would for a pharmaceutical (nor should they). They are going to weigh in on the overall safety of the ingredients used and that the product is generally safe.

They aren't going to evaluate whether there are potential harms or comorbodities for every single slice of the population, which could lead to complications for products like the One Chip which have high concentrations of potentially harmful compounds.

With something like hot sauce you can point to the serving size as a safety factor, but the chip is meant to be eaten all at once.

Again, Paqui is being safe by recalling the product until more information is available.

[-] Angry_Maple@sh.itjust.works 2 points 1 year ago

I think they should follow suit with some of the other extremely spicey foods. A retailer that I used to go to made you sign a waver and required that you prove that you were at least a certain age to buy it. Part of getting the waiver to sign was being told what it can do.

I didn't buy the hot sauce myself, but the staff explained that it could legitimately burn your skin if you left it on for too long. I wish I remember what the sauce was called.

I was shocked at the time that you had to sign a waver to buy hot sauce. It was a weird concept to me. Incidents like this must be why. It makes sense, now that I think about it.

[-] PutangInaMo@lemmy.world 0 points 1 year ago

For real.. going back to the snickers comment, their version of the FDA would pull any food that anybody could be allergic to.

I'll admit when I first was this story I kind of rolled my eyes at it, but the more you look into it the more it makes sense.

An unfortunate tragedy, a kid lost his life. That's terrible and we should do our best to make sure it doesn't happen again.

this post was submitted on 08 Sep 2023
360 points (94.1% liked)

News

23659 readers
3563 users here now

Welcome to the News community!

Rules:

1. Be civil


Attack the argument, not the person. No racism/sexism/bigotry. Good faith argumentation only. This includes accusing another user of being a bot or paid actor. Trolling is uncivil and is grounds for removal and/or a community ban. Do not respond to rule-breaking content; report it and move on.


2. All posts should contain a source (url) that is as reliable and unbiased as possible and must only contain one link.


Obvious right or left wing sources will be removed at the mods discretion. We have an actively updated blocklist, which you can see here: https://lemmy.world/post/2246130 if you feel like any website is missing, contact the mods. Supporting links can be added in comments or posted seperately but not to the post body.


3. No bots, spam or self-promotion.


Only approved bots, which follow the guidelines for bots set by the instance, are allowed.


4. Post titles should be the same as the article used as source.


Posts which titles don’t match the source won’t be removed, but the autoMod will notify you, and if your title misrepresents the original article, the post will be deleted. If the site changed their headline, the bot might still contact you, just ignore it, we won’t delete your post.


5. Only recent news is allowed.


Posts must be news from the most recent 30 days.


6. All posts must be news articles.


No opinion pieces, Listicles, editorials or celebrity gossip is allowed. All posts will be judged on a case-by-case basis.


7. No duplicate posts.


If a source you used was already posted by someone else, the autoMod will leave a message. Please remove your post if the autoMod is correct. If the post that matches your post is very old, we refer you to rule 5.


8. Misinformation is prohibited.


Misinformation / propaganda is strictly prohibited. Any comment or post containing or linking to misinformation will be removed. If you feel that your post has been removed in error, credible sources must be provided.


9. No link shorteners.


The auto mod will contact you if a link shortener is detected, please delete your post if they are right.


10. Don't copy entire article in your post body


For copyright reasons, you are not allowed to copy an entire article into your post body. This is an instance wide rule, that is strictly enforced in this community.

founded 2 years ago
MODERATORS