Police of Southborough, Massachusetts, are warning parents and residents about a TikTok trend called the "hot gum" or "trouble bubble" challenge after ten young children were reportedly hospitalized this week attempting it.
While these recent events have raised appropriate alarms, videos of TikTokers attempting the challenge date back to 2021.
According to local outlet MassLive, students of Dexter Park Elementary School in Orange, Massachusetts, purchased a pack of CaJohn's "Trouble Bubble" gum and distributed it to other students on Tuesday. The product has been marketed as "the hottest bubble gum on the planet" for ingredients that make it more unbearable than even the spiciest peppers in the world. The challenge, according to popular videos online, involves people having to endure the hot gum long enough that they can blow a bubble.
Superintendent Elizabeth Teahan-Zielinski told the outlet that when the students ate the gum, their mouths and throats began to burn, and their stomachs began to ache. Some students who didn't eat the gum still got skin and eye irritations. Those with more severe burn injuries were then sent to the hospital, the outlet reported.
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The gum's website says its product has 16 million Scoville heat units, a common measurement for spiciness, which makes it eight times as spicy as the Carolina Reaper pepper, which tops out at 2.2 million Scoville units.
The hospitalizations compelled the Southborough Police Department to warn locals about the challenge in a Facebook post this week. Police noted that the gum is made using oleoresin capsicum, which is the same active ingredient in police pepper spray.
"Anyone found to have used the gum should be treated for extensive exposure to oleoresin capsicum," the Southborough Police Department wrote in its post on Wednesday. "Immediately have them rinse, swish around, spit out water. Do this as many times as possible."
Although police and school officials have at times blown warnings about internet trends out of proportion, the "hot gum" gum challenge does seem to have been popular on TikTok.
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While it does not appear to be a recent craze, clips from 2021 have amassed hundreds of thousands of views. Challenge participants look like they're in excruciating pain while eating the gum: One TikToker said he had to eat ice cream for more than 10 minutes after he stopped chewing the gum, and another creator said she threw up after.
Insider has reached out to the Orange School District as well as the Southborough Police Department.
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