The hot pepper linked to teen’s death can cause arteries in the brain to spasm.
So I think this is the problem, the packaging says only for adults (these kids were obviously not adults), not for those sensitive to spicy food or with allergies to what I can assume are the main ingredients.
I know disclaimers are a bit woolly as to what can stand up in court, but what more should they have put:
Perhaps something like “this food may cause severe gastrointestinal distress or internal bleeding, which may contribute to pulmonary distress, which in some cases may lead to heart attack, stroke, or death.”
There’s currently no reason to think any of that happened. Cause of death - unknown.
Is this one of those same anti-science, know-nothing takes like those that were too dumb to understand how COVID positive patients that died of heart attacks were legitimate counted as dying from COVID?
Have you ever eaten anything spicy? Did it not provoke an instantaneous physiological response? Sweating? Urinary urgency? Tachycardia? Tachypnea? Erythema?
Capsaicin is neurotoxic, a sufficient dose will kill you. In a sensitive person, or person with pre-existing conditions, a hot chip can definitely be the thing that overwhelms a person. Maybe the chip was the straw that broke the camel’s back, in law and medicine, that’s causal.