After her 12-year-old son ‘overdosed’ on Tyson Fury-branded gum, a mum is demanding a change to the law.
Oliver Wood had spent just £1 buying four packs of Tyson Fury Furocity chewing gum from a Farmfoods in Swindon while out with his mates on 28 August.
To the young lad, they were just conventional chewies, but he unknowingly consumed more than 2,000mg of caffeine in 24 hours – that’s about 20 coffees or 23 cans of energy drink.
Oliver ended up being rushed to hospital with chest pains with his mum, Anne-Marie Willis, ‘so scared’ over what might happen to him.
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She says she would never have let him buy the gum, but he’d grabbed it in the shop because it was so cheap and had branding of the boxer.
"What happened to Oliver was a very frightening and serious situation,” the mum explained. "He had no awareness that the product he had consumed had any serious health risks.
"It's essentially an adult-only product - and it is encouraging that many stores already enforce age restrictions on these products, but sadly this is not the case in all shops.”
There currently isn’t a law prohibiting the sale of caffeine products to children, but the government has published a 10-year health plan which pledges the ban of high-caffeine energy drinks to those under 16.
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One packet of Furocity gum contains 1840mg of caffeine, and according to Bupa, the safe limit for a healthy 10-year-old would be 90mg a day.
OIiver allegedly wasn’t ID’d for the gum and walked off with it. After consuming an entire pack, he eventually showed his mum the gum when he began feeling unwell.
“He came home saying his chest hurt - as soon as he showed me the gum, I knew it was serious,” Anne-Marie said. "I honestly thought he could die - I was so scared."
A call to 111 prompted an ambulance, and after several hours of monitoring and blood tests in the hospital, Oliver’s symptoms began to subside, and he was discharged.
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But his mum considers it a ‘lucky’ escape and is calling for the UK government to make it illegal for under-16s to purchase gums and other non-liquid caffeine products.
Having launched a petition on change.org, she said: “The current legislation completely overlooks gum and other caffeine products. If we get this changed, that could save lives - at the moment it's an accident waiting to happen."
While a ban is being considered to ban high-caffeine energy drinks for those under 16 in England, these kinds of gums would still be available, and Anne-Marie reckons it’s ‘an accident waiting to happen’.
She did add that they’re ‘Tyson Fury fans’ and it’s not ‘about the product’.
"But no other parent should have to fear that their child could be hospitalised from something that should not have been sold,” she said.
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"Now I have launched the petition calling for age restrictions, safer placement in stores, and stricter enforcement of sale policies.”
LADbible has contacted Furocity, Fury’s reps, and Farmfoods for comment.
Topics: Tyson Fury, Health, Parenting
Jess Battison