A couple of weeks ago, I
noted that the two prongs of New York
Times reporter Barry Meier’s journalistic crusade against
energy drinks conflict with each other: In one story, he will

warn that energy drinks contain so much caffeine that they
might kill you, while in another he will
debunk marketing claims about the supposedly energizing special
ingredients in these products, saying all they really deliver is
about as much caffeine as you get in a cup of coffee. Meier manages
to hit both of these themes in two recent stories without
noticing the contradiction.

Last week Meier
noted a Drug Abuse Warning Network (DAWN)
report on emergency room visits by people who had recently
consumed energy drinks:

A rising number of patients, many of them young people, are
being treated in emergency rooms for complications related to
highly caffeinated energy drinks like Red Bull, Monster
Energy and 5-Hour Energy, new federal data shows.

The number of annual hospital visits involving the drinks
doubled from 2007 to 2011, the latest year for which data are
available, according to a report by the Substance Abuse
and Mental Health Services Administration.

In 2011, there were 20,783 reported emergency room visits in
which an energy drink was cited as the primary cause of or a
contributing factor to a health problem, compared with 10,068 in
2007. Such problems, which are typically linked to excessive
caffeine consumption, can include anxiety, headaches, irregular
heartbeats and heart attacks.

In two-fifths of these cases, the patients had consumed other
drugs (typically alcohol or stimulants like Adderall or Ritalin) as
well. Still, 20,783 sure sounds like a lot. How does that compare
to emergency room visits by users of other psychoactive substances?
Meier does not say, but this
DAWN report shows that in 2010 there were 687,574 visits
related to alcohol, 408,021 related to benzodiazepines (such as
Valium), 115,739 related to hydrocodone (Vicodin), and 105,229
related to antidepressants. Even marijuana—which does not cause
fatal overdoses and has so few serious side effects that the Drug
Enforcement Administration’s chief administrative law judge
called
it “one of the safest therapeutically active substances
known to man”—clocked in at 461,028. In this context, 20,783
seems less impressive, especially given the size of the energy
drink market. Survey data from 2008 indicated that
more than a third of 18-to-24-year-olds were regular consumers
of energy drinks, and the market has grown substantially since then
(which helps explain why the number of hospital visits has risen).
By comparison, less than a fifth of people in this age group

report past-month marijuana use.

The point is not that marijuana is extremely
dangerous but that the numbers Meier cites to pump up alarm about
energy drinks actually make them look pretty benign. Similarly,
Meier claims in the same article that the Food and Drug
Administration has received “numerous reports of deaths and
injuries in which the drinks were mentioned.” How numerous?
About
two dozen a year for 5 Hour Energy, one of the leading brands,
and
about four for Monster Energy drinks, another product Meier
says poses a deadly threat to consumers. By comparison, the FDA
receives thousands of such reports (which do not prove a causal
relationship) about aspirin each year and
hundreds about coffee. 

Speaking of coffee, there it is in Meier’s ninth paragraph:

Energy drink producers claim that their proprietary formulations
provide consumers with a physical and mental edge. There is little
scientific evidence, however, that the drinks provide anything more
than a high dose of caffeine similar to that found in a strong cup
of coffee.

In short, we should worry about dying from a caffeine overdose
when we drink Red Bull, even though it contains
less caffeine per ounce than coffee. The discombobulating
juxtaposition of these two points is even more striking in the

latest installment of Meier’s never-ending exposé because it
occurs in adjacent paragraphs:

In recent months, the Food and Drug Administration has begun
examining the safety of energy drinks following reports of several
deaths and numerous injuries potentially associated with the
products. The number of annual hospital emergency visits involving
the drinks doubled from 2007 to 2011, according to a federal
report released last week.

In addition, claims by drink producers that their proprietary
“energy” formulations provide consumers with a physical and mental
edge are coming under scrutiny. There is little scientific
evidence, researchers say, that the drinks provide anything more
than a high dose of caffeine similar to that found in a cup of
strong coffee.

Be afraid! Safe as coffee! Pick one, Barry.