|
Red Bull Murder
Posted February 03, 2009 by Shakti Sombrero
Yes, despite the fact that people have been drinking Red Bull for about a hundred years now and aren't dead from doing so, we should now be deathly afraid of it. As you'd imagine these headlines are not telling the important parts of the story, but they sure as hell are plastered on every news site.
Miss Leach, who had been diagnosed with epilepsy in 2001 after suffering fits and seizures, was believed to have QT Syndrome - a condition which affects the electric activity in the heart.
She also had an abnormally large heart, and the doctor who carried out the post-mortem felt it was "probable" that the caffeine had raised her QT Syndrome level to "abnormal".
Dr Ian Scott, a consultant neuropathologist, said: "On the basis of probability, her epilepsy, the QT, her abnormal heart and the the high levels of caffeine found, the most likely cause of death was a cardiac arrhythmia due to underlying QT Syndrome.
So Red Bull didn't kill her; a rare heart condition did. And Red Bull didn't trigger (potentially--no direct cause has been found) the heart condition; caffeine did. And Red Bull wasn't the only caffeinated beverage she was drinking; she was also drinking caffeinated vodka (VK). But no headline says "rare heart condition kills girl on dance floor". No headline mentions the caffeinated vodka. And only a handful mention caffeine at all. It's all REDBULL MURDERS GIRL, ad nauseam.
As a reminder, a can of Red Bull has less caffeine than a small cup of brewed coffee. For some reason though people seem to have a latent, fuzzily-defined fear of energy drinks that doesn't get extended to coffee.
Be sure to check out our past coverage of the energy drink menace.
Posted in Health Scares, Media Panic
|
Top Threats!
Jan 25 - Mar 8, 2008
|
|||||||||||||||||
© 2008 Panicwatch.org