Sarah Katz, 21, had a heart condition and died hours after she drank Panera’s Charged Lemonade, a large cup of which contains more caffeine than Red Bull and Monster energy drinks combined.
All Panera Bread restaurants are now displaying “enhanced” disclosures about the restaurant chain’s highly caffeinated lemonade, a spokesperson said Saturday, following a lawsuit that was filed by the family of a young woman who died after drinking the beverage.
Monday’s lawsuit, which was first obtained by NBC News, alleges that Sarah Katz, an Ivy League student with a heart condition, died after she drank Panera’s Charged Lemonade last year.
A large Charged Lemonade contains 390 milligrams — nearly the 400-milligram daily maximum of caffeine that the Food and Drug Administration says healthy adults can safely consume.
Generally if this is your standard people will die
It’s a reasonable standard for someone who has a rare heart condition and can’t drink caffeine. People without heart conditions are not going to die from this lemonade.
You are suggesting people who have a rare air condition to spend their whole life in constant fear every single thing the eater drink having caffeine in it and it’ll eventually kill them.
It’s just not sustainable and not reasonable, it’s so easy to just put a big bold warning label when things have caffeine when you wouldn’t expect it.
It WAS labeled with the phrase “contains as much caffeine as our coffee” and “caffeine from guarana and green coffee”. And yes, I do expect people with a rare condition that might kill them to be wary of caffeine. I’m allergic to tree nuts. Therefore I make sure everything I consume does not have tree nuts. I have celiac disease, so I make sure everything I consume does not contain gluten. I have T1, and learn the carb amounts for everything I consume beforehand. I don’t expect every product to have a warning label for the 1% of people who have those conditions.
The last time this was posted there was examples of some shops missing the labels. I don’t think if it was ever confirmed if the shop the woman visited was displaying the label or not.
Put it this way. Someone died. The labeling wasn’t enough.
Even if there are warning signs, doesn’t mean everyone will read them, even people with heart conditions
That’s true, but you can eliminate like 90 percent of the risk with appropriate AND VERY BOLD labeling
The only way to get it to zero is by eliminating caffeine entirely. Not just from this, but from energy drinks, coffee, and so on. Because there will always be someone who ignores any warnings and has something they shouldn’t.
Yeah, but there’s a fine line between someone drinking an energy drink and someone drinking lemonade.
The problem here is that it isn’t directly and obviously intuitive that lemonade has tons of caffeine. It should be.
The signs describing the caffeine content aren’t intuitive enough for you?
When you sell lemonade that rarely has caffeine and make it as caffeinated as coffee you need something that stands out and will always be noticed.
No, adding some stats at the bottom of the sign that are easily missed do not count.