The FDA has issued a stark warning for teens not to partake in the “Benadryl Challenge” currently circulating on TikTok after several young people were hospitalized in Texas and a 15-year-old girl died from an overdose of diphenhydramine, the active drug in the popular allergy medication.
- The trend is another thoughtless, dangerous one. TikTok’s Benadryl Challenge is all about taking enough pills so that you hallucinate and then post a video of the results on the social media site. When taken correctly, Benadryl posts no health risk. However, with increased dosages come extreme risks to health and could even cause fatalities, as has already happened.
- The FDA is taking the problem seriously. In a statement posted to its website on September 24 read, “Taking higher than recommended doses of the common over-the-counter (OTC) allergy medicine diphenhydramine (Benadryl) can lead to serious heart problems, seizures, coma or even death,” the advisory read. “We are aware of news reports of teenagers ending up in emergency rooms or dying after participating in the ‘Benadryl Challenge’ encouraged in videos posted on the social media application TikTok.”
- They’re launching their own investigation. The FDA revealed that it was “investigating these reports and conducting a review to determine if additional cases have been reported” and urged TikTok execs to remove the videos of teens partaking in this challenge ASAP.
- Enough of dangerous TikTok challenges! Teens have brains, so why aren’t they using them more? Whether because of peer pressure, boredom, or something else, there’s a real problem with these harmful and dangerous stunts going around and something needs to be done about it.
