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posted by mrpg on Monday April 16 2018, @11:00PM   Printer-friendly
from the precedence:bulk dept.

FDA Bans Pure Bulk Caffeine Products, Citing "significant Public Health Concern"

Companies can no longer sell bulk packages of liquid or powdered caffeine directly to consumers, the Food and Drug Administration announced Friday. The policy will take immediate effect "given the significant public health concern," according to the agency's statement released Friday. "Highly concentrated and pure caffeine, often sold in bulk packages, have been linked to at least two deaths in otherwise healthy individuals," the agency stated.

[...] In small doses, if you're otherwise healthy, caffeine shouldn't kill you. But part of the issue is that highly concentrated caffeine looks nothing like the kinds of caffeinated products we're used to seeing. Instead, it can look like water if it's in a liquid form or sugar if it's powdered. "The consequences of a consumer mistakenly confusing one of these products could be toxic or even lethal," the agency stated.

[...] Between 10 and 14 grams of caffeine is considered life-threatening, according to the FDA's guidelines, though people can have an irregular or rapid heart rate and seizures after taking just a gram. The amount of concentrated caffeine that's considered safe at a time—200 milligrams—is very, very small.

Also at Bloomberg.


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  • (Score: 2) by The Mighty Buzzard on Tuesday April 17 2018, @01:34AM (11 children)

    Please, you can easily taste caffeine and very likely judge the concentration to within a hundred milligrams per cup. Don't believe me? Try using half decaf half regular in the office coffee pot some morning.

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  • (Score: 1, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday April 17 2018, @02:02AM (6 children)

    by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday April 17 2018, @02:02AM (#667906)

    Decaf coffee from the supermarket tastes like shit because of how it has been decaffeinated. The difference in taste is all the chemicals they've used to strip not just caffein, but most of the flavour from the coffee.

    There are some decaffeinated coffees (1/10th the caffein of a normal coffee) that taste better and stronger than lower quality coffees with more caffein in them. So I'm not sure it's obvious from taste alone.

    However, the issue you're replying to is a faulty assumption anyway. The purpose isn't to stop malicious use of a chemical to poison someone - that can be done in any number of ways using other saleable opened capsules, tablets, liquids, powders, etc. The issue is that it is too easy to accidentally poison yourself or someone else because of the way the product is presented to a consumer - especially when a teaspoon of something that looks otherwise innocuous can kill you. Same applies to selling poisonous substances in bottles that look like water or other typical drinking bottles.

    • (Score: 3, Informative) by The Mighty Buzzard on Tuesday April 17 2018, @02:14AM (4 children)

      The point was, you can taste caffeine. Don't believe me? Put as little as 50mg in a cup of water then do the Pepsi Challenge with an ordinary cup of water.

      It's easy to accidentally kill yourself millions of ways if you're bloody stupid. That's no reason to make life shitty for those of us aren't.

      --
      My rights don't end where your fear begins.
      • (Score: 1, Informative) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday April 17 2018, @04:20AM (3 children)

        by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday April 17 2018, @04:20AM (#667950)

        In a neutral and relatively consistent tasting solution like water you might be able to taste it. But, add it some overly flavoured sugar drink, smoothie, or alcoholic beverage, and the odds that you'll recognise it as poisonous reduce dramatically. You might still taste it, but will you think it tastes bad/wrong/poisonous enough to avoid drinking it. Same goes for methanol in drinks, you can surely taste it in water, but in a cocktail you just assume its part of the flavour and end up in hospital with a risk of permanent eye damage.

        • (Score: 2) by The Mighty Buzzard on Tuesday April 17 2018, @11:01AM (2 children)

          In normal concentrations, you're still wrong. My tongue can spot 50mg of caffeine in twelve ounces of pretty much anything.

          In lethal concentrations, you're astoundingly wrong. It would taste quite terrible in anything weaker tasting than drain cleaner. We're talking multiple grams instead of tens or hundreds of milligrams.

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          My rights don't end where your fear begins.
          • (Score: 2) by darkfeline on Tuesday April 17 2018, @06:03PM (1 child)

            by darkfeline (1030) on Tuesday April 17 2018, @06:03PM (#668209) Homepage

            I'm glad to know that TMB's sense of taste is considered the standard across all human beings.

            People regularly do much stupider things than downing an overly bitter self-made energy drink.

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    • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday April 17 2018, @03:06AM

      by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday April 17 2018, @03:06AM (#667927)

      ...because of how it has been decaffeinated

      Methylene Chloride or Ethyl Acetate?
      There are other methods to do the task. [littlecoffeeplace.com]

      -- OriginalOwner_ [soylentnews.org]

  • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday April 17 2018, @02:03AM (3 children)

    by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday April 17 2018, @02:03AM (#667907)

    The problem is, in super concentrated form, when you taste it, you will have easily swallowed a large dose already. It's too late then. Coffee is to ultrapure caffeine as light beer is to Everclear.

    • (Score: 2) by The Mighty Buzzard on Tuesday April 17 2018, @02:18AM (2 children)

      In a super concentrated form, you'd never swallow it to begin with unless you're bucking for a Darwin Award. It does not taste good in high concentrations. It in fact tastes quite terrible. Regardless, I'm utterly unconcerned if people want to go putting chemicals in things they plan to consume without knowing what the fatal doses of said chemicals are. It's not difficult to look up, so the only explanation they have is utter stupidity.

      --
      My rights don't end where your fear begins.
      • (Score: 2) by Mykl on Tuesday April 17 2018, @03:59AM (1 child)

        by Mykl (1112) on Tuesday April 17 2018, @03:59AM (#667944)

        But won't you think of the children?!