Grandmother Of Poisoned Boy Asks Procter & Gamble To Stop Making Tide Pods Look Like Delicious Candy

Since their introduction in 2012, Tide detergent pods have been a lightning rod for controversy. Initially packaged in clear plastic, candy jar-like container, the glossy, orange, blue and white pods tempted an alarming number of children into taste-testing them. Procter & Gamble, the makers of Tide, have subsequently made the packaging opaque and more secure, but one woman who says her grandson almost died after biting into a Tide pod says more can be done to make the product less yummy-looking to children.

In her Change.org petition to one of the nation’s largest companies, the grandmother says that after her 15-month-old grandson bit into a Tide pod, “He began to go into respiratory distress, and became lethargic. He became violently ill almost immediately with severe vomiting and diarrhea, and was rushed to the emergency room where he was thankfully saved.”

She thinks the existing warnings on the pods don’t go far enough and don’t get at the real risk of the product.

“Tide markets these pod products as being unique compared to other detergent formulas specifically because of the concentrated power of the chemicals inside and the fact that they dissolve as soon as getting wet — whether by water or child’s saliva,” she explains. “That’s why pods like these are so toxic and sicken children by the hundreds every single week.”

We don’t know if there is evidence to support this claim of hundreds of children being sickened every week, but there is no doubt that there has been an uptick in detergent poisoning since Tide launched the pods.

In August, a 7-month-old in Florida died after ingesting a detergent pod. The specific brand was not given, but as we’ve shown, even some Tide knock-offs have been packaged in questionable containers, though at least Costco has updated its container to be opaque.

The petition currently has around 30,000 signatures.

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