Tide Pod Dangers
Kids got sick eating detergent long before the Tide Pod Challenge
Laura Santhanam
There was the bucket challenge, the cinnamon challenge, and the mannequin challenge.
For weeks now, thanks to a Twitter joke gone wrong, we’ve also seen the “Tide Pod Challenge,” in which teens on YouTube, Twitter and Facebook try to eat a highly concentrated detergent packet meant for laundry — and film it.
“How edgy am I?” one teen asked on Twitter before chewing a pod and, seconds later, gagging as powdered detergent poured out of his mouth.
Another slowly bites into a blue detergent packet, pausing for a moment before gagging and screaming on camera.
After the first burst of toxic liquid, people who take on the challenge often gag, spit and cough. They aren’t actually “eating” the pod. But if people swallow even a small amount of these toxins, they may suffer chemical burns on their throats, esophagus or lungs. They may vomit and endure intense abdominal cramping and diarrhea. They could have trouble breathing for the rest of their lives. In the most extreme cases, they die.
Health professionals have worried for years about how easily children accidentally slurp down detergent pods meant for washing machines and dishwashers. Some look like candy, or feel like teething rings, and when stored underneath sinks, can be easy to reach. More recently, they’ve also worried about teens, young adults and the so-called “Tide Pod Challenge.”
Just how widespread has this become?
Consumer Reports first warned about the dangers of ingesting detergent pods in 2012, when poison control centers reported 7,700 cases among children ages 5 and under, it reported — an average of about 148 a week. The CDC called it an “emerging public health hazard.” In the first three weeks of 2018, poison control centers across the country have gotten 719 laundry pod-related calls, particularly for incidents involving people ages 13 to 19. From Jan. 1 to Jan. 21, 86 of those calls involved teenagers who intentionally ate laundry pods, up from 39 such incidents during the first half of January last year, according to the American Association of Poison Control Centers. None of those teens have died so far.
In 2017, poison control centers recorded 12,299 incidents related to laundry pods, according to preliminary data. More than 80 percent of those incidents involved children age 5 or younger biting into pods. This time last year, call centers logged a total of 609 calls involving laundry pods.
Up until recent months, Ben Hoffman, a pediatrician based in Portland, Oregon, said most calls about pod ingestion usually involve young children or people with cognitive disabilities, impulse issues or oppositional defiant disorder. The chairman of the American Academy of Pediatrics Council on Injury, Violence and Prevention said he suspects calls coming into poison control centers are “just the tip of the iceberg.”
Along with the obvious risks, laundry pod consumption can trigger underlying and unknown health issues, such as asthma and seizures, Hoffman said. Sometimes, people stop breathing. Since 2012, eight older adults with dementia and two young children have died after eating pods, mistaken for candy.
Hoffman said the industry should do more to make these pods less enticing to children and teens alike: “There’s nothing in these things that are good for you.”
On Wednesday, Ice-T made his own PSA with Jimmy Fallon. Multinational manufacturer Procter & Gamble, which produces Tide Pods, responded to the trend by releasing a public service announcement with Super Bowl-bound New England Patriots tight end Rob Gronkowski. “What the heck is going on people?” he asks.