FDA Investigates Link Between Monster Energy Drinks, Deaths

Monster Energy, a popular energy drink that is rich in caffeine, may be responsible for five people losing their life, according to incident reports recently released by the Food and Drug Administration. Similar to past reports that involved drugs or medical devices, the F.D.A. and their report do not prove a direct link between Monster Energy and the deaths or other health problems. The records were recently made public after a mother of a 14-year-old Maryland girl who died in December from a heart arrhythmia after she drank large cans of Monster Energy on two consecutive days.

Wendy Crossland, the mother of that teenager, filed a lawsuit against Monster Beverage, a publicly traded company in Corona, California, that used to go by the company name of Hansen Natural. In Ms. Crossland's lawsuit, she charges that Monster failed to warm consumers about the risks of its energy drinks; a claim quickly refuted by a company spokeswoman who said last week that its products are "safe" and were not the root cause of the teenager's death. To add a bit of salt on the wound, that spokeswoman, Judy Lin Sfetcu, added that Monster was "unaware of any fatality anywhere that has been caused by its drinks."

Props: Huffington Post