People urged to eat food instead of detergent pods
Canadian authorities are warning people to stop eating laundry detergent pods, a strange and dangerous online trend that has resulted in more than 40 hospitalizations in North America.
In a statement issued Thursday, Health Canada warned teens and others against intentionally biting the pods, while a P.E.I. police force tried to make the same point with humour.
An officer with Kensington police posted a video on the force’s Facebook page describing the dangers of the so-called Tide pod challenge.
In the seven-minute video, Const. Robb Hartlen reminds people that a banana and Timbit are safe to eat, but that a Tide pod or Timbit package are not.
“Seriously, do we really need to tell people what they can and can’t eat?” Hartlen said.
The unlikely stunt has become an online phenomenon: People filming themselves biting into the colourful pod, and then becoming ill.
Swallowing even a small amount of the highly concentrated detergent can cause diarrhea and vomiting. Both YouTube and Facebook have been working to take down the videos.
According to an alert issued this week by the American Association of Poison Control Centers, the centres have received over 50,000 calls relating to liquid laundry packet exposures in the last five years.
“While unintentional misuse by children five and under accounted for the majority of these calls, a recent trend among teenagers ingesting the packets — and uploading videos to various Internet platforms including video-sharing websites, social media and vlogging platforms — has caused significant concern among poison control centers,” the alert reads.