If you're like many Americans with kids, you woke up this morning to a huge pile of Halloween candy your kids collected last night. The same was true for my parents in the 1980s and early 1990s. Every Halloween my parents would look through the candy to make sure nothing was tampered with. It was an attempt to make sure the candy wasn't poisoned. I remember this every year and remember reading newspaper articles and watching TV news reports providing tips on how to best search Halloween candy. When my kids first started trick or treating I did the same thing. But is poisoned Halloween candy a worthwhile worry of parents?
The answer is no. There are several reports over the years of a child getting sick or even dying of poisoned Halloween candy, but the truth of the matter is there are NO documented cases of a child getting sick or dying of poisoned candy. The cases in which this was suspected turned out to be a different cause. Snopes.com has done a wonderful job discussing this on their website. You can read the article here:
Halloween Non-Poisonings
This is not to say you shouldn't check over your kid's candy just to check for anything obvious. A more justifiable reason for checking candy is just to make sure a wrapper hasn't come open, in which case the candy may have hit the ground or some other contaminated source. If candy really is poisoned, the odds are you would never know from a cursory check. The good news is there's no reason to worry about poisoned candy. It's one of those urban myths that has run rampant over the years.
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