It is not really news at this point, most people are aware of the extremely dangerous and stupid Fad going around among teens and young adults. People are voluntarily biting into Tide Pods -- small plastic pods filled with Tide laundry detergent, and posting it on social media. It started recently with internet memes of Tide Pods being photoshopped or photographed as food items. Now people are actually ingesting them.
The chemicals in these pods are highly toxic. It is extremely dangerous to ingest these chemicals. Tide has had to change their packaging and appearance over the years, due to unfortunate incidents of young children or older people with dementia mistaking them for candy.
However, this dangerous fad going around is with people who clearly know they are laundry detergent pods and are not meant for consumption. Now, Tide is working on getting people to stop.
Taking action on the matter
It really does not take a long explanation as to why this is dangerous. The toxic chemicals in the detergent on top of the possibly of choking on the plastic can put one's health at risk and even be life-threatening. Since the fad got big, news outlets around the country have repeatedly asked people to stop ingesting these pods. In addition, the American Association of Poison Control Centers CEO Stephen Kaminski was quoted by Kaitlyn Alanis of The Wichita Eagle as he spoke on the matter.
“The intentional misuse of these products poses a real threat to the health of individuals. We have seen a large spike in single-load laundry packet exposures among teenagers since these videos have been uploaded.”
NBC News reports that YouTube is removing any videos of people eating the pods to prevent the encouragement of doing it.
Facebook is also doing a similar thing. A week back, Tide's twitter account released a video featuring football star Rob Gronkowski begging people to stop ingesting their product.
What should Tide PODs be used for? DOING LAUNDRY. Nothing else.
— Tide (@tide) January 12, 2018
Eating a Tide POD is a BAD IDEA, and we asked our friend @robgronkowski to help explain. pic.twitter.com/0JnFdhnsWZ
Why? Just why?
There have been a number of silly fads of the years.
They come and they go. Some may be harmless, however, this is beyond comprehension. The fact that Tide, news outlets, medical professionals, and poison control personnel have to give public service announcements to beg people to stop ingesting toxic chemicals is absurd. Yes, it has been a problem with infants thinking it is candy, but they do not know any better. This is an issue with so many teens and young adults knowing what they are ingesting.
If popularity and "being cool" is gained by putting your health or life at risk, then society's standards are way out of whack. There is nothing brave or cool about placing toxic chemicals in your mouth. Tide has taken all sorts of safety measures to keep kids who do not know any better out of harm's way, now, do restrictions have to be made so that teens do not get their hands on them? It is sad it may come to that. Just don't even think about doing it. It is not worth it at all.
