The mak­er of an ex­treme­ly spicy tor­tilla chip sold as the One Chip Chal­lenge and pop­u­lar­ized as a dare on so­cial me­dia is pulling the prod­uct af­ter the fam­i­ly of a Mass­a­chu­setts teenag­er blamed the stunt for his death.

The cause of Har­ris Wolobah’s death last Fri­day hasn’t been de­ter­mined and an au­top­sy was still pend­ing as of Thurs­day, but the 14-year-old’s fam­i­ly blames the chal­lenge. Since his death, the Texas-based man­u­fac­tur­er, Paqui, has asked re­tail­ers to stop sell­ing the in­di­vid­u­al­ly wrapped chips — a step 7-Eleven has al­ready tak­en.The One Chip Chal­lenge chip sells for about $10 and comes wrapped in a sealed foil pouch that is en­closed in a cof­fin-shaped card­board box. The pack­age warns that the chip is made for the “venge­ful plea­sure of in­tense heat and pain,” is in­tend­ed for adults and should be kept out of reach of chil­dren.

Paqui, a sub­sidiary of The Her­shey Com­pa­ny, said in a state­ment post­ed on its web­site Thurs­day that it was “deeply sad­dened by the death” of Wolobah.

“We have seen an in­crease in teens and oth­er in­di­vid­u­als not heed­ing these warn­ings,” the com­pa­ny said. “As a re­sult, while the prod­uct con­tin­ues to ad­here to food safe­ty stan­dards, out of abun­dance of cau­tion, we are ac­tive­ly work­ing with re­tail­ers to re­move the prod­uct from shelves.”

Au­thor­i­ties in Mass­a­chu­setts have al­so re­spond­ed to the death by warn­ing par­ents about the chal­lenge, which is is pop­u­lar on so­cial me­dia sites such as Tik­Tok. Scores of peo­ple, in­clud­ing chil­dren, post videos of them­selves un­wrap­ping the pack­ag­ing, eat­ing the spicy chips and then re­act­ing to the heat. Some videos show peo­ple gag­ging, cough­ing and beg­ging for wa­ter.

“We urge par­ents to dis­cuss this with their chil­dren and ad­vise them not to par­take in this ac­tiv­i­ty,” Worces­ter Coun­ty Dis­trict At­tor­ney Joseph Ear­ly said in a se­ries of posts about the chal­lenge on the so­cial net­work X, for­mer­ly known as Twit­ter. “The com­pa­ny warn­ings state the chips are in­tend­ed for adult con­sump­tion. Oth­er states across the coun­try have seen hos­pi­tal­iza­tions due to the chip chal­lenge, in­clud­ing teens.”

There have been re­ports from around the coun­try of peo­ple who have got­ten sick af­ter tak­ing part in the chal­lenge, in­clud­ing three stu­dents from a Cal­i­for­nia high school who were sent to a hos­pi­tal. And para­medics were called to a Min­neso­ta school last year when sev­en stu­dents fell ill af­ter tak­ing part in the chal­lenge.

“You can have very mild symp­toms like burn­ing or tin­gling of the lips in the mouth, but you can al­so have more se­vere symp­toms,” said Lau­ren Rice, the chief of pe­di­atric emer­gency med­i­cine at Tufts Med­ical Cen­ter in Boston, not­ing that this is an op­por­tu­ni­ty for par­ents, coach­es, teach­ers to learn about the var­i­ous so­cial me­dia chal­lenges that are out there and could pose dan­gers.

“This goes back to the in­gre­di­ents that are used with the tor­tilla chip,” she con­tin­ued. “There are some spices like cap­saicin, which is a chem­i­cal in­gre­di­ent that we use in things like pep­per spray and so they are very strong chem­i­cals and they can be very ir­ri­tat­ing. Some of the more se­vere symp­toms that we see can be things like sig­nif­i­cant ab­dom­i­nal pain or nau­sea and vom­it­ing.”

Dr. Pe­ter Chai, an as­so­ciate pro­fes­sor of emer­gency med­i­cine and med­ical tox­i­col­o­gy at Brigham and Women’s Hos­pi­tal, said these chips can be dan­ger­ous un­der cer­tain cir­cum­stances.

“It’s pos­si­ble eat­ing these chips with high con­cen­tra­tion of cap­saicin could cause death,” he said. “It would re­al­ly de­pend on the amount of cap­saicin that an in­di­vid­ual was ex­posed to. At high dos­es, it can lead to fa­tal dys­rhyth­mia or ir­re­versible in­jury to the heart.”

Po­lice in Worces­ter, which is in cen­tral Mass­a­chu­setts and is the state’s sec­ond-largest city, said in a state­ment that they were called to Wolobah’s house Fri­day af­ter­noon and found him “un­re­spon­sive and not breath­ing.” He was trans­port­ed to the hos­pi­tal, where he was pro­nounced dead.

Fam­i­ly and friends of Wolobah be­lieve the chips caused his death, and his fam­i­ly called for the chips to be banned from store shelves.

“The chip is re­spon­si­ble in our eyes for what­ev­er took place be­cause he was a healthy kid,” said Dou­glas Hill, who runs the bas­ket­ball league Wolobah played in and de­scribed him as a qui­et teen whose fam­i­ly came to the U.S. from Liberia.

“The con­ver­sa­tion now is about the chip, but there will be oth­er chal­lenges com­ing and we want to make sure chil­dren know they shouldn’t be par­tic­i­pat­ing in any­thing that could put them in harm’s way,” said Dou­glas, who or­ga­nized a bas­ket­ball event Sat­ur­day to hon­or the teen. A Fri­day vig­il is al­so planned.

There can be no doubt about why some­one would eat these chips.

In ad­di­tion to its name, One Chip Chal­lenge, the pack­age lays out the “rules for the chal­lenge,” which en­cour­ages the buy­er to eat the en­tire chip, “wait as long as pos­si­ble be­fore drink­ing or eat­ing any­thing,” and post their re­ac­tion on so­cial me­dia. The pack­ag­ing al­so asks how long can the in­di­vid­ual last on a scale from one minute to one hour.

The back of the pack­age warns buy­ers not to eat the chip if they are “sen­si­tive to spicy foods, al­ler­gic to pep­pers, night shades or cap­saicin or are preg­nant or have any med­ical con­di­tions.” It al­so said in­di­vid­u­als should wash their hands af­ter touch­ing the chip and “seek med­ical as­sis­tance should you ex­pe­ri­ence dif­fi­cul­ty breath­ing, faint­ing or ex­tend­ed nau­sea.”