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'One Chip Challenge' pulled from shelves after mother says spicy tortilla chip contributed to her son's death

www.nbcnews.com 'One Chip Challenge' pulled from shelves after mother says spicy chip contributed to son's death

Paqui's spicy tortilla chip product was sold in a coffin-shaped container.

'One Chip Challenge' pulled from shelves after mother says spicy chip contributed to son's death

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.

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  • The NYT has additional information that may add context.

    Harris Wolobah is not the first child who has sought medical care after eating the chip. School officials in California and Texas told the “Today” show website last year that students had been taken to the hospital after eating one.

    Also last year, about 30 public school students in Clovis, N.M., experienced health issues after eating the chip, KOB-TV of Albuquerque reported. As a preventive measure, the Huerfano School District in Colorado banned the chips, according to a post on its Facebook page.

    In a 2020 study, researchers at the University of Mississippi Medical Center detailed the “serious complications” that can result from eating the Carolina Reaper pepper, noting that a 15-year-old boy had suffered an acute cerebellar stroke two days after eating one on a dare. The Carolina Reaper has been measured at more than two million Scoville heat units, the scale used to measure how hot peppers are. The Naga Viper has been measured at just under 1.4 million Scoville units. Jalapeño peppers are typically rated at between 2,000 and 8,000 units.

    But that has not stopped the curious.

    Colin Mansfield of Beaumont, Calif., and his nephew Cole Roe, 15, ate the chip together over FaceTime and Mr. Mansfield shared the video on X, the platform formerly known as Twitter. Mr. Mansfield, who makes his own hot sauce, said that it was like a “really spicy curry” and that the heat began to wear off after about 10 minutes. (His nephew, he said, needed a drink after 30 seconds.)

    But that’s when another side effect kicked in for both of them: a crippling stomachache.

    “I was on the floor, in a fetal position,” Mr. Mansfield said, adding that he wouldn’t have eaten the chip had he known that it would feel as if “somebody put you on the ground and kicked you in the stomach.”

    Devin McClain and Jade Dian, who live in Houston, said they had also experienced stomach pains after recording themselves eating the chip — and then chasing it with water, milk and ice cream — for their YouTube channel.

    “It was instant pain,” Ms. Dian said. “The milk was not helping, the ice cream was not helping.”

    Mr. McClain said that even after the intensity of the heat had faded in his mouth, he could still feel it in his body.

    “You could feel it spread; that’s the worst part, honestly,” he said.

    Clearly the stomachache response is not unheard of. In addition, stomach distress can be a symptom of anaphylaxis. I have to wonder if it's people with very, very mild allergies to capsaicin and the amount and strength in these peppers are pushing it into extreme allergic reaction. One thing that gets me wondering is that nothing listed in the ingredients, to my admittedly limit knowledge, should turn your tongue blue. So how are they achieving that, what ingredient is not listed? When trying to find out through Googling it, I found even more cases of people getting hospitalized because of the chip, especially teenagers, in previous years.

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