Attention, parents! There's a dangerous new social media challenge to look out for. People (particularly teens) are eating Tide Pods—yes, literal laundry detergent—and posting the videos to social media.

The "Tide Pod challenge" is the latest in a line of terrifying trends. There was the eraser challenge, the deodorant challenge, and the list goes on. And like those that came before it, there are scary consequences to ingesting the laundry detergent capsules.

"You'll get burns to the skin, burns to the eyes, and a lot of problems that are more severe," Joe Krug, M.D., of St. Vincent Hospital in Indianapolis, Indiana, told WXIN. "Burns to the respiratory tract, burns to the esophagus."

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CNN reports that ingesting the packets can result in vomiting and eye injuries as well. In rare cases, children have gone into comas or cardiac arrest; two died. Even when spit out (as the "challenge" participants often do in the videos), Krug explains the materials can still pose a risk. And once it's done, there's not much you can do except call the national poison help hotline.

Procter & Gamble, Tide's parent company, issued the following statement:

"Our laundry pacs are a highly concentrated detergent meant to clean clothes and they're used safely in millions of households every day. They should be only used to clean clothes and kept up, closed and away from children. They should not be played with, whatever the circumstance is, even if it is meant as a joke."

The strange challenge seems to have developed from a popular internet meme which jokingly compares the colorful packets to fruit snacks. Here's just one example:

Both The Onion and College Humor have published satirical content on the concept, but it's actually a very real problem: Consumer Reports says that "In the first six months of 2015, poison-control centers nationwide received 6,046 reports of kids 5 and younger ingesting or inhaling pods, or getting pod contents on their skin or in their eyes, according to the American Association of Poison Control Centers (AAPCC)." The risk applies to seniors with dementia too: Last May, an 87-year-old woman died after ingesting two pods.

Did you or someone you know eat a laundry detergent pod? Call the American Association of Poison Control Centers help hotline at 1-800-222-1222.

(h/t WXIN)

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From: Woman's Day US