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I remember being a kid (8 or 9) and sitting down with my friend at his house with his parents and going through all our candy together to check for danger signs

by ebcode 9y ago

I remember being a kid (8 or 9) and sitting down with my friend at his house with his parents and going through all our candy together to check for danger signs. Sure enough, there was a single-wrapped Reese's peanut-butter cup with a hole in the wrapper, and we opened it up and found a sewing needle stuck inside the peanut-butter cup. (I don't think I'm making this up, but memories being what they are, this might have been a story that was told to me. I do remember vividly the breaking of the peanut-butter cup into two pieces and the needle falling on the table, though, so I'm inclined to believe the memory.) This would have been in the late 1980s. So, in my case, the fear did not come from the media, but from a personal experience. So rather than saying, "this never happens, it's just a myth", we should be saying, "this can happen, and let's take steps to protect ourselves". Anyone remember the Tylenol Poisonings[0]? That was real, inspired copycats, and led to tamper-resistant and tamper-evident packaging. Tragic, but at least we learned from the tragedy. While it's true that not everyone is out to get you, at the same time it's foolish to think that no-one is out to get you. [0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chicago_Tylenol_murders https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chicago_Tylenol_murders

cutcss 9y ago
Believe it or chewing a sewing needle don't actually kills you; but sure you can be afraid of anything and still get validation of that fear; you know a lot of people die from heavy objects falling from buildings? You should protect from that too, it has happened before so clearly you should take steps to protect yourself (and it has happened a lot more than candy poisoning), perhaps always using a construction helmet would be a nice first step. And traffic accidents, so many pedestrians die from car accidents that its weird we all don't have personal airbags around our torsos and heads; at the end of the day being alive its the biggest risk factor of dying and the only sure way to not die is to be already death.
georgeecollins 9y ago
Your story is amazing, but it is an anecdote. The data found by researchers about the dangers of Halloween candy suggest that the risk is more or less non-existent. The point is not that people should think no one is out to get them, it is that they ignore real dangers because the media likes to talk about imaginary ones, and ignore real ones like pollution, which are not as exciting.
asynchronous13 9y ago
The fear of needles and razor blades goes back at least to the 1960's. The actual number of documented cases is very small, and the vast majority of those don't even involve injury. Follow up studies discovered that most of the reports turned out to be hoaxes perpetrated by the kids or parents (an older sibling playing a prank on a younger sibling, then getting scared when the parents found out and letting the parents report it as legit). "The Razer Blade in the Apple" by Joel Best and Gerald T. Horiuchi concluded in 1985 that the threat of a halloween sadist had been greatly exaggerated from 1958 to 1983. https://www.jstor.org/stable/800777?seq=1#page_scan_tab_contents https://www.jstor.org/stable/800777?seq=1#page_scan_tab_cont... We can't say it never happens. However, it happens so rarely that it's not worth worrying about.

by ebcode 9y ago

cutcss 9y ago

Believe it or chewing a sewing needle don't actually kills you; but sure you can be afraid of anything and still get validation of that fear; you know a lot of people die from heavy objects falling from buildings? You should protect from that too, it has happened before so clearly you should take steps to protect yourself (and it has happened a lot more than candy poisoning), perhaps always using a construction helmet would be a nice first step. And traffic accidents, so many pedestrians die from car accidents that its weird we all don't have personal airbags around our torsos and heads; at the end of the day being alive its the biggest risk factor of dying and the only sure way to not die is to be already death.

georgeecollins 9y ago

Your story is amazing, but it is an anecdote. The data found by researchers about the dangers of Halloween candy suggest that the risk is more or less non-existent. The point is not that people should think no one is out to get them, it is that they ignore real dangers because the media likes to talk about imaginary ones, and ignore real ones like pollution, which are not as exciting.

asynchronous13 9y ago

The fear of needles and razor blades goes back at least to the 1960's. The actual number of documented cases is very small, and the vast majority of those don't even involve injury. Follow up studies discovered that most of the reports turned out to be hoaxes perpetrated by the kids or parents (an older sibling playing a prank on a younger sibling, then getting scared when the parents found out and letting the parents report it as legit). "The Razer Blade in the Apple" by Joel Best and Gerald T. Horiuchi concluded in 1985 that the threat of a halloween sadist had been greatly exaggerated from 1958 to 1983. https://www.jstor.org/stable/800777?seq=1#page_scan_tab_contents https://www.jstor.org/stable/800777?seq=1#page_scan_tab_cont... We can't say it never happens. However, it happens so rarely that it's not worth worrying about.