Panera Bread’s highly caffeinated Charged Lemonade is now blamed for a second death, according to a lawsuit filed Monday.
Dennis Brown, of Fleming Island, Florida, drank three Charged Lemonades from a local Panera on Oct. 9 and then suffered a fatal cardiac arrest on his way home, the suit says.
Brown, 46, had an unspecified chromosomal deficiency disorder, a developmental delay and a mild intellectual disability. He lived independently, frequently stopping at Panera after his shifts at a supermarket, the legal complaint says. Because he had high blood pressure, he did not consume energy drinks, it adds.
To play devil’s advocate (because I really don’t care for Panera Bread or energy drinks), but…
“Because the drink was not clearly marked as being dangerous…”
It’s actually NOT dangerous for healthy individuals. In the first death, the woman had a heart condition and knew it had caffeine in it, but obviously not her or Panera would know what her safe limit (if any) would be. Yet, she consumed it anyway.
In this more recent death, the man had multiple health risks, including high blood pressure, an “intellectual disability”, “blurry vision” and “ADHD” (not sure if he was also on medication for any of those).
Assuming it was self-serve, as most Panera Bread’s are (I believe), he would have seen this:
Now, he many not have understood what any of that means, but he also purchased this drink “at least seven times over the course of two weeks” according to the lawsuit.
Having high blood pressure means that even the sugar would create problems for him.
He ended up drinking “3 servings”, which could be up to 2.5L (!!!) worth, which killed him. That’s not a normal amount of any beverage, for any individual, in one sitting. Let alone a high sugar, high caffeine drink for someone with high blood pressure who may have also been on medication.
I guess my question would be: what else should restaurants do?
Someone with a health condition could be at risk when they overconsume on most foods that are high in one thing or another (fat, salt, sugar, caffeine, etc.)
Hell, drinking enough water in a short amount of time could kill you, so where does a restaurant’s responsibility end and the individual’s responsibility begin?
I mean, nuts also aren’t dangerous to healthy people if you count healthy people as those without nut allergies…
The logic doesn’t hold up vs how society is supposed to work.
And someone with a nut allergy will check ingredients before consuming food outside of the home, right?
Both of the deceased had health issues, not allergies. Both should have been taking it easy on sugary drinks, and caffeinated beverages. Both had consumed this same lemonade multiple times before.
I still can’t fault panera bread. Someone posted a link to a lawer explaining this case, and they also said that Panera has no liabily here.
LegalEagle did an interesting video on this where he pointed out that companies don’t actually have more of a duty of care when a customer has special requirements than they do with a customer who does not have special requirements, and that PER OUNCE the caffeine content of the charged lemonade was actually slightly less than the dark roast coffee
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vKwrMD7zDvM
That’s still a shitton of caffeine. People don’t realize it but coffee has as much if not more caffeine than energy drinks. For non coffee drinkers it’s enough to throw a person into a panic attack.
Also, super sugary drinks mask the “bite” of caffeine and make it much easier to over-consume. Most people would balk at a 32oz cup of coffee, (a Starbucks venti is 20oz) but 32oz is a pretty common “large” size soda in America; I can walk into any gas station and find a 32oz soda cup. If I drank a single one of those, it would be equivalent to ~4 cups of coffee in a single drink. That’s more coffee than I’d normally drink all day, and it’s all in a single cup.
Maybe I need to rethink my coffee consumption
Thanks for sharing! It’s cool to see Dr mike there, too!
They are selling a drink where one serving contains 97.5% of the recommended maximum daily dosage of a stimulating substance. We (me at least) now know that that maximum daily dosage is 400mg, but I only know that now because people died and it was prominently feaurered on social media.
A borderline drink like this, should be locked away in a liquor cabinet or only be dispensed by a licensed bartender. When selling the drink, the cashier/bartender should then also warn customers of the danger of the contents and that they should not drink it if they have already consumed caffeine that day, nor should they consume any other caffeine during the rest of the day. Clearly they aren’t doing any of that, it’s just a container in the general food area, with some nutritional information that most people not fully comprehend.
We all constantly buy and consume stuff without fully understanding what’s in it. When buying stuff in the store, I only check the sugar contents in the detailed ingredient list. When buying stuff in a takeaway, I check nothing. I’m certainly not going to sleuth on the internet to find the max dosages of each ingredient. If a drink is put out in the open like this, then I assume that it’s safe.
Tbh, I’m absolutely disgusted by the victim blaming in this case. It’s not that man’s fault that he was not smart and him not being smart, definitely does not make this death acceptable.
Again, I’m simply playing devil’s advocate here, and I’m not taking one side over the other… I’m just exploring the evidence presented.
To clarify, they sell this drink in two sizes. One has around the same amount of caffeine as a tall coffee at Starbucks, the other (852ml size) has under 400mg.
The FDA says that most people should have no more than 400mg (assuming they are 175lbs), but that’s only because it produces unwanted side effects and/or can have long term health effects at that dose.
The actual lethal limit is something like 10,000mg.
The issue is that he had multiple health conditions, which would be exacerbated by both caffeine AND sugar, but not if he consumed reasonable quantities. This is why he was able to have the same drink many times in the past without incident.
While I agree that energy drinks shouldn’t be sold to minors, since they are at a higher risk of harm and likely don’t have the brains to understand those risks, what you describe goes way beyond the responsibility of a restaurant.
Would you expect a coffee shop to do the same? Literally ask questions they have no business asking, any time someone orders a caffeinated beverage or shock a tray of them?
The drinks at Panera are self-serve, btw.
To reiterate: IT IS SAFE. People with health conditions or taking meds needs to be acutely aware of what they should and should not consume, especially if they plan to consume it in larger quantities that’s considered beyond normal.
And you also point out another problem: people assume that the food they consume is “safe”, but ignore any health problems they might have which could make any food unsafe.
High blood pressure, a heart condition, gluten intolerance, food allergy, food interaction with meds, etc… anyone with any of those conditions should be hyper-aware of what goes into their body. If they ignore their limits, problems happen.
If you do have to avoid a certain food, ingredient, or nutrition, it’s always best to ask to find out before consuming it. Or avoid it if you’re unsure.
I agree, it’s a tragedy. But I don’t think Panera Bread can be blamed in this case.
the ld50 for a 175lb person is 15,240.75mg. 10,000 can EASILY kill someone. 5,000 probably still kills 1/4 of people (i didn’t look up the curve). i would guess that 1000 is probably safe for most people, but even a 1% death rate is pretty high for a lemonade.
2800mg is lethal according to Mayo Clinic https://www.mayoclinic.org/healthy-lifestyle/nutrition-and-healthy-eating/in-depth/caffeine/art-20045678
ld50 means half of all subjects died at that dosage. but subjects die all along the curve. I believe people commonly die at 2800mg, but that’s far short of the ld50. id like to know where that dosage sits on the curve.
Yes, 10,000mg is the published lethal dose (approx. 21L of this lemonade.)
That would bring us to 10L of water, which could still be lethal to some people regardless of whether it had caffeine or sugar in it.
Thankfully, it’s probably closer to 0.0001% for lemonade.
Caffeinated beverages are among the most widely consumed, probably even more so than water in developed countries.
Fortunately, caffeine related deaths, even in those who take caffeine pills, are quite rare in healthy adults. When it does happen, it’s often when caffeine is abused, overconsumed, or the person has some underlying health condition and probably shouldn’t be consuming caffeine anyway.
i had not considered the dilution. i honestly have no idea how this effects metabolization (i’m not a medical professional of any kind i just dabble in pharmacology). you seem pretty sure about this so you’re probably right. i take one 200mg caffeine pill daily and thats about all of my consumption.
I could be wrong, too. I’m trying to consider all aspects of this case and to base my opinion.
I will say that if Panera is found guilty, I wonder how it will affect other restaurants, who serve foods that can cause death due to overconsumption in people with underlying health issues.
Will all salty, fatty, sugary, and caffeinated products have a Canadian cigarette-style warning labels on them? I guess we’ll have to wait and see.
Perhaps “Chubby Emu” will make a video about “death by lemonade”, as he (an MD) covers a lot of wacky food-related topics causing death or injury.