Have teens taken “Eating Tide Pods” too far? The answer is yes, the outside wrapping of a tide pod is made of polyvinyl alcohol (PVA), a water-soluble plastic compound. This is exactly why this packet dissolves in the washing machine, it can also dissolve in a person’s mouth, leading to the fast release of the deadly laundry detergent.

They contain dangerous chemicals that, if ingested, can lead to life threatening breathing problems, damage to the throat from the burning ingredients, burns, blood pressure changes, gas problems, visual symptoms, and loss of consciousness.

The exact number of deaths related to the Tide pod challenge is difficult to estimate. But a growing number of injuries have been linked to eating these products, for reasons of “being done with 2018 already”. According to the American Association of Poison Control Centers, there were 10,570 calls of detergent exposure reported to poison centers in 2017, for children 5 and younger.

In conclusion teens should not take a meme or a joke seriously, at first people were just talking about it and joking around, now they have taken this meme to a reality. Eating Tide Pods is dangerous and can lead to death. It’s not funny and memes should not start potential deaths, posting videos titling it, “Tide Pod challenge!”, is inappropriate. YouTube has been taking as many of these videos as they can, trying to make YouTube a non-life-threatening place.