DANGERS IN THE HALLOWEEN CANDY…A MYTH

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE

10/25/99

Dangers in the Halloween Candy…a Myth

FOR MORE INFORMATION

Contact: Michael Pinney, Adjunct Professor of Psychology & Folklorist, North Harris College

Email: Mpinney@thefolklorist.com

Website: http://thefolklorist.com/candy.htm

Phone: 281-518-7792 pager 713-717-7776

HOUSTON, TEXAS... We are all familiar with the fact that every year, hundreds of children are poisoned or injured by ingesting tainted Halloween candy. Sadistic madmen seem to come out at this time, threatening the safety of our nation’s youth. However, there is one issue that inevitably fails to arise, the fact that Halloween candy tampering is basically a myth.

Tales of tampered candy and others like it are based more on our unreasonable collective fears, fueled by the media and hearsay, than on factual information. The fear surrounding tainted Halloween treats goes back for decades and may have originally stemmed from an incident in 1964. A New York housewife, annoyed that many of the trick-or-treaters were too old to be asking for free candy, decided to make up packages of inedible treats to give the teens. The packages contained steel wool, dog biscuits and ant buttons. To her credit, she did clearly label the ant buttons "POISON" and cautioned the teenagers of her little prank. No one was injured, but the potential for harm was there, so the District Attorney prosecuted and she plead guilty to endangering children.

National panic about candy tampering didn’t reach an epidemic proportion however, until the New York Times ran an article in 1970 claiming that "Those Halloween goodies that children collect this weekend on their rounds of ‘trick or treating’ may bring them more horror than happiness." (NY Times, 10/28/70, pg. 56) The article went on to give specific and horrifying examples of potential tamperings. Since the Times article, the media has kept that fear alive. Even "Dear Abby" got in on the action by reminding parents of the danger that "…somebody’s child will become violently ill or die after eating poisoned candy or an apple containing a razor blade."

The truth about the dangers might not have been discovered, were it not for California researchers Joel Best and Gerald Horiuchi, who studied national crime data going back to 1958. In their 1985 published study, they found only 76 reports of any kind of tampering. Most of them turned out to be mistaken or fraudulent. Out of these 76 reports, only three incidents of children dying were reported to be tainted candy cases. In one case, the father of a Houston boy gave him arsenic laced candy to collect on a large insurance claim. In the second case, a boy stumbled across his uncle’s stash of heroin, ingested some of the drug and died. This boy’s family tried to hide the facts by sprinkling heroin over some of his other candy, but the family soon confessed to their cover-up. And in the third case, a Los Angeles girl had a fatal seizure that was first blamed on tainted candy, but later discovered to be the result of a congenital heart condition.

Has massive tampering of foodstuffs ever occurred? We all probably know that the answer is an unfortunate "yes." Following the aftermath of the 1982 Tylenol murders, there was a sudden increase in tamperings that reached a level never before achieved. During this brief moment in time, there were various objects inserted into Halloween candy, and poisons introduced into non-Halloween foods and medicines, however, no significant injuries were reported over the Halloween weekend.

So where does this leave us? Unfortunately, the media hype of the few events that have actually occurred serves as a potent enough reinforcer of our beliefs that an article like this will have little effect in the long run. However, you now have the information that you need to make a reasonable decision regarding the practice of accepting candy over this holiday weekend. The real question is, "Will you use it?"

For more information on this subject, visit: http://thefolklorist.com/candy.htm

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