Post by JoannaL on Apr 19, 2023 7:08:39 GMT -5
The TikTok Benadryl Challenge: Deadly Teenage Fad
One of the latest teenage TikTok fads is the Benadryl Challenge, in which teens overdose on the over-the-counter antihistamine used to relieve symptoms associated with allergy, hay fever and the common cold.
Recently, 13-year-old Jacob Stevens (above) of Greenfield, Ohio, who spent a great deal of time watching TikTok and YouTube videos, accepted the challenge and downed 12 to 14 Benadryl tablets – more than six times the recommended dosage – hoping for a hallucinogenic “high.” His “friends” were filming the challenge when the boy began seizing, but they became frightened and abandoned him.
When he became unconscious and family members couldn’t arouse him, Jacob was taken to the hospital, where he was ultimately pronounced brain dead. He remained unresponsive for six days before his parents asked the doctors to take him off life support.
“I think Jacob kind of thought the Benadryl wasn’t going to hurt him,” his grandmother, Dianna Stevens, told Fox News. “He’s had it before.
“We tried to tell him to stay off TikTok,” she explained. “We didn’t want him on TikTok. There’s things on there that are good, but there’s also things on there that are bad. One thing I’d like to get to parents and grandparents out there: If you know your children – if you see just the slightest little change – if they start staying away from you ... I would just be cautious.”
According to doctors with the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA), teenagers think they’re invincible and seek unnatural highs, failing to acknowledge the consequences. Teens have been known to ingest 10 times the normal dose of Benadryl and other medications, and the results can be life-threatening.
Mild overdoses of Benadryl causes drowsiness, constipation and the inability to urinate. Major overdoses can result in seizures, psychosis, coma and death.
Matthew Bergman, the attorney who founded the Social Media Victims Law Center (SMVLC), which has represented in excess of 1,700 parents whose children have been injured or died because of social media addiction and the problems that arise therefrom, claimed the Benadryl challenge isn’t that uncommon. The SMVLC website includes the challenge as one of many TikTok challenges about which parents should be aware.
“I have some clients who have partaken in it,” he said. “Fortunately, they have not died, but many have. ... The challenge is part of the TikTok architecture. They actively promote challenges as a way to addict children to their products and keep them engaged. The challenges range from the inane to the deadly.” Children, he added, participate in the various challenges “for social acceptance” and “praise from their peers.”
Other teens have suffered ill effects or died after taking part in the challenge, including Chloe Mare Phillips, a 15-year-old girl in Blanchard, Oklahoma, who died of a Benadryl overdose August 21, 2020.
Upon learning of the most recent death, a spokesperson for TikTok, which is owned by Communist China, said the company’s “deepest sympathies go out to the family” of Jacob Stevens.
The individual, who claimed TikTok has a team of 40,000 safety professionals who work to remove violations continued, saying, “At TikTok, we strictly prohibit and remove content that promotes dangerous behavior. with the safety of our community as a priority. We have never seen this type of content trend on our platform and have blocked searches for years to help discourage copycat behavior.”
The TikTok guidelines state: “We do not permit users to share content depicting, promoting, normalizing or glorifying dangerous acts that may lead to serious injury or death,” or “allow content which promotes or endorses collective participation in dangerous or harmful activities that violate any aspect of our Community Guidelines.” The company defines dangerous acts or dangerous behavior “as activities conducted in a non-professional context or without the necessary skills and safety precautions that may lead to serious injury or death for the user or the public. This includes amateur stunts or dangerous challenges.”
According to Jacob Stevens’s grandmother, at one time, her grandson loved to spend time outside, riding his bike and playing sports, but eventually, she noticed a shift in his behavior. He got “a kick out of” TikTok videos, she said, and became somewhat addicted to watching them on his phone. Initially, she thought his behavioral changes were nothing more than the normal growing pains of a preteen boy, but now she is warning other parents and grandparents to take action when they notice changes in a child’s personality.
TikTok is a short-form video hosting service owned by the Chinese company ByteDance. It hosts user-submitted videos, which can range in duration from 3 seconds to 10 minutes.
Friday, April 14, Montana became the first state to pass a bill to ban the popular, Communist-owned streaming app TikTok. Should the bill become law, TikTok would be forbidden on all personal devices within the state. In the meantime, lawmakers in Washington, D.C., continue to weigh the future of TikTok in the United States.
Sources: Audrey Conklin, Fox News, April 18, 2023; CNN Business, April 14, 2023; Korin Miller, Health, January 16, 2023; Institute of Living, October 9, 2020, and Victoria Forster, Forbes, September 2, 2020.
