Warheads Candy Kills?

There is a topic on discovery.com on Warheads Candy killing somebody. I decided that it was interesting enough to put it on the website.

The original post was:
Okay guys, on that extremely sour Warheads candy pack it says "Do not take many pieces at a time." Of course I had to try it. By simply taking 5 pieces, my tongue started to burn. I kept them in my mouth until the sour taste went away and then felt a sharp pain. I thought it was nothing so I forgot about it. My friend tried doing the same, but he put 13 pieces in his mouth, which was way to much. He said he felt his tongue burning, and spit out the candy after a short while. He opened his mouth and his tongue was shredded. The acids of the Warheads candy had dissolved the edges of his tongue and burn a small "ditch" in the middle crease. When we went home, he threw up several times. We decided to drive him home. He went to the doctor, and it turned out that the candy caused irreversible damage to his tongue. His esophagus received some bad acidic burns. As for me, my tongue was only slightly damaged. We looked into this and heard that in the past three years there was a death caused by consuming too many of these candy pieces. Either this may be a myth like what the Pop Rocks candy myth, or it may be the truth. So can Warheads candy really kill, or if the damage is just superficial, and not harmful at all?

The next good argument was:

The ingredients in that candy are: Sugar, Corn Syrup, Malic Acid, Citric Acid, Water, Ascorbic Acid, Artificial Flavors, Blue 1, Red 40, Yellow 5.

The acids in the candy are very mild and are used many foods. There is no way that they would cause any damage.

The next definitive argument was:
Lol, this is funny because I had a friend that had 15, yes 15, at once. His tongue went numb and he had to be rushed to the ER to get his stomach pumped. I don't this will kill, but it will really mess up your day.

My favorite part was:

quote:
His tongue went numb and he had to be rushed to the ER to get his stomach pumped.

No, he didn't.

Let's run through the ingredients shall we?

Sugar? Don't even try to suggest that is a culprit, cavities are the greatest of his worries, and maybe those around him might see him as wound up.

Corn Syrup, chiefly the fructose within it, which is metabolized just like other sugars.

Malic Acid, if this is in anyway harmful, then you better stop eating apples too, because that too contains malic acid... Wasn't there an adage about apples being good?

Citric Acid, do I even need to address this? It's widely considered to be a very healthy and beneficial acid commonly found in citrus fruits (hence the name), those very fruits were even a mandatory staple for centuries on board sailing ships to prevent diseases like scurvy. It'd make him healthier before it would readily hurt him.

Ascorbic Acid? So Vitamin C is what made your "friend" need his stomach pumped?

It's pretty easy to see you've just swung for the fence attempting a home run of horse manure, but rather than sailing over the wall it's splattered all over the hitter...

Eating too much candy is a VERY well known and easily self diagnosed illness, upset stomach, and at the very worst you can induce vomiting on your own, a stomach pump is ridiculously over the top for such a situation.

The most sensible post was:

quote:
I think this is true. One of my best friends knows someone (and they were there) who had three at the same time. After a while, their tongue actually started to bleed. The acid in the Warhead ad deteriorated their tongue enough to make it bleed.

uh huh...

And I know of someone that claims to have a best friend that knows someone who's mouth bled from eating a sour candy, I call the first person a prevaricator.

I have eaten multiple sour warhead candies at once several times, and while it made my mouth pucker so tight I couldn't eat a jelly bean with a sledge hammer (exaggeration of course, but you get the point), it most certainly did NOT make my mouth raw or even remotely close to approaching bleeding. In fact it made me salivate just that much more, which inherently dilutes the concentration of the sourness, and after about a minute, all of the sourness is dissipated anyway and they become sweet.

It didn't hurt me, nor cause me harm, it was just very very sour, that's all there is to it.

Once down to their "core", which contains another dose of sour candy, it again is sour but nowhere near to the amount that it was to begin with since your taste buds have long since been overwhelmed by the amount of sweetness readily available in your saliva already.

Again, I reassert my challenge and insist that if anyone is going to claim actual bodily harm as a result of the warheads candy, then you must demonstrate which of the ingredients listed in great detail in my previous post is culpable, and then you must simultaneously explain why the countless other food products in the world that also contain those extremely common ingredients don't cause the identical symptoms you wish to attribute to the candy as a result of those ingredients.

Short of getting sick to your stomach which I can easily envision, however the same can be said from eating too much of ANY candy, warheads candies are eaten by millions of children annually, by all means provide even one single documented case to support your claims as a result of the source(s) you purport to be guilty.

As for the preposterous suggestion of the acid(s) within the candy causing irritation to mucus lining of tongue and cheeks, Malic, Citric, and Ascorbic are all weak acids. Compounded with the ridiculously insignificant quantity, and simultaneous dilution in saliva, their effect on the human body even from a whole BAG of warheads candies is imperceptible... well, aside from never being able to blink again... ever.

The only irritation you're going to do to your cheeks and tongue are going to be the rubbing of the hard candies across your soft tissue with a comparably abrasive sugar crystal laden pumice stone marked as a treat. Repeat the process enough and you will amazingly wear on the flesh and it will become raw and irritated.

Don't believe me? Take literally ANY other hard candy product (let's just say a lifesaver or a peppermint for instance), and roll your tongue all over it, and rub it up against your cheeks with your tongue consistently for a minute or even several at a time to be comparable to the duration of the sour coating's punishment to dissolve the candy without chomping it.

You actively rubbing your own flesh raw is not a problem with the product, but rather the operator.

All of the information was taken from here