There’s a new dangerous challenge making the rounds on social media. Teens are attempting to eat poisonous laundry pods dubbing it the “Tide Pod Challenge.”
We’ve warned parents about injuries and deaths involving small children eating the pods thinking they are candy, but this challenge has teens intentionally chewing on the poisonous packets.
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“I think it’s pretty strange and not very healthy. I don’t know why they are doing it,” said U.D. student Danielle Stahl, “I guess they find it funny.”
“It’s all over Twitter- people making jokes,” said 17-year-old McKenzie King of Kettering.
Over the weekend, emergency crews were looking into a possible laundry pod ingestion case involving a teen in Warren County. We’ve called hospitals and police in the area but haven’t received confirmation at this time.
However, the “Tide Pod Challenge” trend is growing so fast that Tide and the Consumer Product Safety Commission have tweeted about the danger.
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Tide tweeted “what should Tide Pods be used for? Doing Laundry- nothing else,” and the CPSC tweeted “Laundry pods are not a snack. Don’t eat poison.”
“Tide pods are really colorful and cute- but very dangerous,” said Dayton Children’s Hospital director of community health, Jessica Saunders.
There were six detergent pod ingestions from January 2017 to September 2017- all were unintentional and involved children younger than two, according to Dayton Children’s. Parents need to warn children and teens about laundry pod poisoning and other injuries. “We haven’t seen any teenagers so far,” said Saunders, “we have seen that chemical reaction actually burn children on their chest or their face.”
Experts hope the “Tide Pod Challenge” viral trend will die down quickly but parents should consider keeping laundry pods in a locked cabinet -away from children and teens of all ages.