A Different Take on Halloween Safety

The news is covered with stories on Halloween safety. Some are good with nice tips on pedestrian safety that we need to follow every day. Some are lists and lists of ways your kid’s costume night lead to their death. According to the news, today’s kids are apparently unable to handle walking down the street in a costume without dying. If you have a gifted and talented child who can survive the treacherous trek through the neighborhood, they will likely die at home from eating tampered Halloween candy. Apparently, our seemingly normal neighbors have just been biding their time, waiting for the perfect day to kill our children with poisoned candy.

According to Snopes(http://www.snopes.com/horrors/poison/halloween.asp) , however, there has never been a documented case of a child being poisoned with Halloween candy given to them by someone other than a family member. There is also the fear of sharp objects inserted into the candy and we are encouraged to have the candy x-rayed to prevent injury. Professor Joel Best says he can only track about 80 cases of this since 1959. That averages to 1.5 incidents a year and most of them are hoaxes.

So, given this information, why do we let the fear take over every Halloween and believe the hype about the "dangers"? How about we just relax and let the kids have fun for a change?