I think that tens of thousands of people have done it and this is the first fatality says that it was something unique about the victim, rather than the chip.

Sorry I'll wait for the final report. Something was almost certainly fucked up with that kid before hand.

They are hot, but no fuckin way do I believe for a second that chip killed that kid without subs freakish underlying condition.

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.

People are calling this kid stupid. I disagree.

Nobody buying food in America would think that a single serving product would be able to kill you without any sort of prior health conditions. This is a completely fair assumption and one that is important.

Second, the one chip challenge has been in the public eye for a while. There are multiple examples of people eating them successfully in previous years. When things do go badly, it's usually something along the lines of "I threw up everywhere". That's a far cry from dying and along the lines of risks teenagers have taken for decades.

Third, a ton of food items use the skull and crossbones motif. I've seen it on hot sauces that aren't even that spicy. Nobody assumes that the skull and crossbones means risking death. This is, again, because everyone assumes that food is generally safe to eat.

In conclusion, don't sell things in convenience stores that can kill an otherwise healthy person in short order. While this is especially true for children, it's a good rule of thumb in general.

Even as someone who loves really spicy foods, I think the ever-escalating spicy trend is getting ridiculous. After a certain point you don't taste anything and its just a dumb one-upsmanship contest.

More responsible than gun manufacturers.

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.

This is about the most wasteful product I've ever encountered. You wrap one chip in plastic to keep it fresh and then throw cardboard around it with tons of empty space and then ship those on trucks?! What the fuck.

I support killing this product on its environmental harm whether it's implicated in the teen's death or not.

Idk how the legal accusations stand up, as there are warnings and liability disclaimers everywhere on it...

I've eaten it, most of my friends have, and we were fine. But I've known others who reacted much more strongly to just a crumb, so I can see how with preexisting conditions that could happen.

anyone born after 2008 can't cook... all they know is mcdonald's , charge they phone, play Roblox, eat hot chip & die

I had the hottest one one time and legitimately thought I was going to have to go to the hospital. I ate it around 1PM and my entire rest of my day was gone to extreme sickness like I've never experienced before. To this day I get very sick feeling any time I smell something similar to it.

this is hands down a 'shit happens' events. its not always someones fault someone gets hurt.

Goes to show that we know so little still about gut biology.