“Monster Energy Drinks Cited in Death Reports,”
says the headline over a Bloomberg News
story. The article notes that shares in the company “fell
14 percent to $45.73 at the close of New York trading, erasing
all the gains the stock had made this year.” The basis for the
story, and presumably for the drop in Monster’s stock price:
“adverse event” reports to the FDA that Kevin Goldberg, a Silver
Spring, Maryland, lawyer who is suing Monster, shared with
Bloomberg. Goldberg’s lawsuit, filed last week, alleges that a
14-year-old girl named Anais Fournier died of cardiac
arrhythmia caused by an overdose of caffeine after drinking two
24-ounce cans of Monster drinks during one 24-hour period. The
Associated Press press
reports that Fournier “had an inherited disorder that can
weaken blood vessels.”

Although Goldberg cites the adverse event reports to back up his
allegation that the caffeine content of Monster drinks poses a
predictable and unacceptable risk to consumers, they actually
suggest the opposite. Bloomberg counts 37 reports involving Monster
energy drinks, including six fatalities, during the six-year period
from 2004 through 2009—an average of about half a dozen a year. By
comparison, the FDA receives  thousands of such reports about
aspirin each year
and hundreds about coffee. And as Bloomberg
notes in the 12th paragraph, “the claims…don’t prove causation.”
They show only that someone experienced a symptom after consuming a
product, not that the latter caused the former.

How does the caffeine content of Monster drinks compare to those
of other widely consumed beverages? According to Energy
Fiend, most Monster varietities have 10 milligrams of caffeine
per fluid ounce. (The Mayo Clinic concurs.)
That’s more than twice as much as Mountain Dew (4.5 mg/ounce) but
44 percent less than drip coffee (about 18 mg/ounce) and one-fifth
as much as espresso (around 50 mg/ounce). At a concentration of
10mg/ounce, a 24-ounce can of Monster would contain substantially
less caffeine than a large (16-ounce) Starbucks coffee. If Monster
is recklessly endangering consumers, so is Starbucks.

[Thanks to Mark Lambert and Ron Steiner for the tip.]