It is the same deal every Halloween, kids dress up in outfits, walk through the neighborhood, knocking on doors and yelling "Trick or Treat!" when the person opens the door. The neighbor does the neighborly thing and comments on how scary the kids' costumes look and not say anything about knowing this or that kid set fire to his trash can the other night (confession time: my friend Gary did that in the 5th grade). The neighbor then puts candy in each kid's bag and they go off to scare another neighbor.
When the kids get home, parents inspect the candy for any sort of tampering, remembering their mothers reminders every Halloween about sick people in the world tampering with Halloween candy. Sometimes, parents will go to the hospital emergency room to have the candy X-Rayed.
Benjamin Radford, of the Skeptical Inquirer, reported that
Despite e-mail warnings, scary stories, and Ann Landers columns to the contrary, there have been only two confirmed cases of children being killed by poisoned Halloween candy, and in both cases the children were killed not in a random act by strangers but intentional murder by one of their parents. The best-known, "original" case was that of Texan Ronald Clark O'Bryan, who killed his son by lacing his Pixie Stix with cyanide in 1974.And what of the candy that the X-Ray machine deemed to be safe? It is now contaminated with a small amount of radiation. In effect, you tampered with your own candy.
There have been a few instances of candy tampering over the years—and in most cases the "victim" turned out to be the culprit, children doing it as a prank or to draw attention. With the exceptions noted above, no child has been killed or seriously harmed by contaminated Halloween candy.
X-raying candy helps parents feel like they are protecting their children, but in fact parents are simply wasting resources and feeding children's fears unnecessarily.If you have doubts about a piece of candy, just throw it out. The only thing that will come out of taking the candy to the hospital to be X-rayed or calling the police is that you will find out your HMO will not cover the cost and the cops will be taken away from real emergencies.
This is perhaps the saddest part about this myth: children are given the message that their neighbors might try to poison or hurt them. In fact, a child is in far more danger from his or her own parents than from strangers. Surely there are better uses for the X-ray equipment and film than battling a myth. Clinics would do more good offering free or low-cost X-rays to needy families than scanning candies.
