The hot pepper linked to teen’s death can cause arteries in the brain to spasm.

155 points

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?

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19 points

But… my pitchfork?

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9 points

Are you saying we shouldn’t put all our chips in one basket?

Or not to count the chips before they hatch?

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6 points

No. On the Internet, all human events occur in the 68% range.

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1 point
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Or you know we can use common sense and respect that there is simply no way the chip didn’t at least contribute.

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44 points

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.

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8 points

Nah, mate. Knowing something you didn’t even bother to learn is the definition of common sense, which I made up myself.

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9 points

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.

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1 point

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.

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4 points

Is it the chip’s fault if this turns out to be an allergic reaction or something like that?

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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.

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129 points

Headline: a single chip killed someone!

Article: the cause of death has not been determined

🤦‍♂️

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11 points

Most annoying is how much the damn post has been upvoted

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7 points

Thanks, that was my understanding, was wondering if I missed something

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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.

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36 points

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.

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3 points

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.

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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.”

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53 points

Still no proof capsaicin caused the death. I’m eagerly awaiting for what the autopsy unveils

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-7 points

Also no proof it didn’t… also interested to see what the autopsy unveils

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2 points

There’s no proof aliens didn’t shoot him with an invisible laser… also interested to see what the autopsy unveils

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41 points

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.

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12 points
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5 points

Same thing happened to Sriracha 15 years ago.

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3 points
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2 points

I’ve long argued that like volume on alcohol, food marketing itself as spicy should have to display it’s actual scoville rating on the packaging by law.

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11 points

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.

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1 point

Spicy challenge products have been sold like this since before TikTok was a thing.

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1 point

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.

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