Experts: Tide pod challenge is dangerous

First, it was the “gallon challenge” and the “cinnamon challenge.”

Then some teenagers started playing the “bathsalt challenge.”

They have dared each other to pour salt in their hands and hold ice till it burns, douse themselves in rubbing alcohol and set themselves ablaze, and throw boiling water on unsuspecting peers.

Now videos circulating on social media are showing kids biting into brightly colored liquid laundry detergent packets. Or cooking them in frying pans, then chewing them up before spewing the soap from their mouths.

Experts say the game, dubbed the “Tide pod challenge,” is dangerous.

“A lot of people were just saying how stupid I was or how — why would I be willing to do that?” 19-year-old Marc Pagan, who said he was dared to do it, told CBS News this month. “No one should be putting anything like that in their mouths, you know?”

Last year, U.S. poison control centers received reports of more than 10,500 children younger than 5 who were exposed to the capsules. The same year, nearly 220 teens were reportedly exposed, and about 25 percent of those cases were intentional, according to data from the American Association of Poison Control Centers.

So far in 2018, there have been 37 reported cases among teenagers — half of them intentional, according to the data.