Moms and dads everywhere are really worried that their kids are going to end up with one of these bags of nerd candies and they'll find their child dead. Doctors say fentanyl is 50 times more dangerous than heroin and 100 times more lethal than morphine. The empirically false, completely falsifiable idea that illegal immigrants are bringing rainbow fentanyl into the country could kill 500 million people.
This year’s fear of rainbow fentanyl in kids’ trick-or-treat bags is just the latest unfounded Halloween candy freakout. But the yearly panic has its roots in a very real crisis: the 1982 Tylenol murders.
This episode was produced by Avishay Artsy, edited by Matt Collette, fact-checked by Laura Bullard with help from Jillian Weinberger, engineered by Efim Shapiro, and hosted by Sean Rameswaram.
Transcript at vox.com/todayexplained
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