Costa Rica Health Ministry warns of energy drink danger

Monster Energy (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

October 24^th, 2012 (InsideCostaRica.com) – Sissy Castillo, Costa Rica’s Vice-Minister of health, said that the Ministry was going to conduct a study on the “Monster Energy” brand energy drink that is distributed in Costa Rica, after the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) in the United States, requested the drink be investigated, in order to determine whether the death of five people is associated with this product.

“Every time there is a warning (from the FDA), there is always a follow up on the situation,” said Castillo.

Shelly Burges, spokesperson for the FDA, told international news agencies on Monday that they had received reports concerning five deaths and a heart attack that may be linked to the beverage.

According to the Reuters news agency, one of the cases involved a 14 year-old girl, Anais Fournier, who died from a heart attack. According to the lawsuit filed against the Monster company, the girl drank two cans of 0.7 liters each, after which she suffered a heart attack and died on December 23^rd, 2011. The lawsuit states it was “arrhythmia caused by the toxicity of the caffeine” that the beverage contains.

Fournier’s family filed a legal process, in which they state that Monster does not warn about the dangers of their product.