The Food and Drug Administration (FDA) is investigating Monster Energy Drink after it’s alleged to have been involved in one non-fatal heart attack and over five (5) deaths of people drinking the Monster beverage. Several more people are known to have become so sick after drinking Monster that they’ve had to be hospitalized.
This federal investigation comes right after the California wrongful death case was filed last Friday by the parents of a fourteen year old teenager who died after drinking two (just 2) of the 24 ounce Monster Energy Drinks over a 24 hour time period. One on one day, one the next, and she died on December 23, 2011.
That girl, their 14-year-old daughter, Anais Fournier, is alleged to have died from “cardiac arrhythmia due to caffeine toxicity” and her parents have just filed a wrongful death lawsuit against Monster Beverage Corp. arguing that Monster failed to warn about the dangers of drinking Monster Energy Drink and are therefore legally responsible for the wrongful death of the pretty fourteen year old girl.
What happened to Anais Fournier?
Monster Energy Drink has 240 milligrams of caffeine in each 24-ounce can: that is 7 times the amount of caffeine in a 12 ounce can of cola. Anais Fournier did not guzzle one Monster right after the other. No.
According to the pleadings of her wrongful death lawsuit, Anais drank one can of Monster on one day and then on the next day but within a 24 hour time span, she drank another. If this was a pattern for two glasses of milk or two cans of cola, then this wouldn’t be a big deal, right? But what is known is that Anais took in 480 milligrams of caffeine into her body within a short time span and this is alleged to have caused cardiac toxicity resulting in cardiac arrhythmia which caused her death according to the Maryland medical examiner’s autopsy report.
Cardiac arrhythmias involve the electricity that causes your heart to beat: there are electrical impulses that pattern heartbeats and in cardiac arrhythmia, that electrical impulse pattern gets screwy. Sometimes, things get so skewed that it can be life-threatening.
Symptoms of a caffeine overdose include:
- Breathing trouble
- Changes in alertness
- Confusion
- Convulsions
- Diarrhea
- Dizziness
- Fever
- Hallucinations
- Increased thirst
- Irregular heartbeat
- Muscle twitching
- Rapid heartbeat
- Sleeping trouble
- Urination – increased
- Vomiting
Extent of the Problem of Monster Energy Drinks Still Being Revealed
In one more demonstration of the power of a personal injury lawsuit, the investigation of the California wrongful death case has revealed from its public records request that there have been 6 (six) deaths and 15 (fifteen) hospitalizations between 2009 and 2011 allegedly resulting from the drinking of Monster Energy Drinks as reported to the FDA’s Center for Food Safety Adverse Event Reporting System.
Monster, of course, is denying that its product is the cause of Anais Fournier’s death or the cause of any harm to anyone that has resulted in death or hospitalization.
