- A 14-year-old died after eating an extremely spicy chip as part of a social media challenge.
- The official cause of death is unknown but the One Chip Challenge is being pulled from shelves.
- Spicy foods can cause heart problems, bleeding, and death, doctors say.
A tortilla chip company is pulling its extremely spicy One Chip Challenge chip from shelves after a 14-year-old boy who ate it for a social media challenge died.
The single-serve chip sold by Paqui came wrapped in foil and in plastic packaging shaped like a coffin. Consumers were encouraged to eat the whole chip and film their reaction on social media, and to wait as long as possible before drinking or eating anything else, the Associated Press reported.
The cause of Harris Wolobah’s death on September 1 is currently being investigated by Massachusetts officials, but his family believe the chip was to blame.
Douglas Hill, who runs the basketball league that Wolobah played in, told the Associated Press: “The chip is responsible in our eyes for whatever took place because he was a healthy kid.”
On its website, Paqui states that the One Chip Challenge is “intended for adult consumption,” and should be kept out of the reach of children.
In a recent statement, the company said: “We have seen an increase in teens and other individuals not heeding these warnings.
“As a result, while the product continues to adhere to food safety standards, out of abundance of caution, we are actively working with retailers to remove the product from shelves.”
The chip contains Carolina Reaper peppers and Naga Viper peppers, which are two of the hottest currently available, the company said.
Insider has contacted Paqui and its parent companies Amplify Snacks and The Hershey Company for comment.
A Hershey spokesperson told The Washington Post that company officials “are deeply saddened by the news report and express our condolences to the family.”
Capsaicin, which makes food spicy, is highly irritating to the eyes, skin, and mouth
This isn’t the first time hot chips have been suspected to be linked to a medical emergency. Insider previously reported that at least three California high school students were hospitalized after taking part in the challenge in 2022, and in 2018, the rapper Lil Xan said he was hospitalized and vomited blood after eating too many Flamin’ Hot Cheetos.
Experts say that these adverse effects can happen because of the capsaicin in the chips, a naturally occurring compound that is the active ingredient in chili peppers.
Capsaicin, which can also be made synthetically, is highly pungent and irritating to the eyes, skin, and mouth of humans and animals, according to the National Capital Poison Center.
Dr. Kelly Levasseur, a pediatric emergency medicine doctor at the Children’s Hospital of Michigan, told Fox 2 Detroit that even one bite of a product containing capsaicin can cause tingling of the lips, burning in the throat, and an upset stomach.
But the effects can be more serious. “It can kind of erode the tissue or wear away the tissue in the esophagus and we have a lot of blood vessels there and it can erode even into blood vessels,” Levasseur told the outlet, “and that can cause severe issues, it can cause bleeding that’s uncontrolled.”
According to the National Capital Poison Center, capsaicin can also cause chest pain, heart palpitations, and heart attacks.
Dr. Peter Chai, an associate professor of emergency medicine and medical toxicology at Brigham and Women’s Hospital in Boston, told AP that eating chips with a high concentration of capsaicin could cause death.
“It would really depend on the amount of capsaicin that an individual was exposed to. At high doses, it can lead to fatal dysrhythmia or irreversible injury to the heart,” he said.
Dysrhythmia is an irregular heartbeat that can lead to serious health problems if left untreated.
