Strangers poison children's Halloween sweets.

The story you've heard

Ask almost any parent in North America about Halloween safety and you will hear the same warnings. Check every sweet before your child eats it. Throw away anything unwrapped. Watch out for apples with razor blades, pins in chocolate bars and sweets laced with poison by a sinister stranger.

The fear became so widespread that doctors have even debated whether children's sweets should be X-rayed. By 2011, a poll found that about a quarter of American parents of young children still worried about poisoned treats. But how often has it actually happened?

The sociologist who checked

Joel Best, a sociologist at the University of Delaware, decided to count. In 1985, working with a student, he searched four major American newspapers, including the New York Times and the Chicago Tribune, for every report of contaminated Halloween treats from 1958 onwards. He later extended the search through 1989 and has kept updating it with online news databases.

He only counted reports that said where the incident happened and how the treat was supposedly tampered with. There were surprisingly few. Most described someone finding a pin or blade, with nobody hurt. Follow-up checks by others found that many reports were hoaxes. Best has pointed out that a child can easily plant a pin and enjoy all the attention that follows.

Crucially, he found no substantiated report of a child killed or seriously injured by a contaminated treat picked up while trick-or-treating. Best is careful about the limits of this. No list of news stories can be complete, and you cannot prove that something never happened. But a death like that would almost certainly have been major news.

The cases that turned out differently

A handful of deaths were blamed on Halloween poisoners at first. In Detroit in 1970, five-year-old Kevin Totson died after eating heroin, and early reports said it was hidden in his sweets. A less publicised follow-up report said he had found the drug in a relative's home. In 1978 and 1990, other children's deaths were first linked to treats but were later found to have natural causes.

The most famous case, in Pasadena, Texas, in 1974, was not a stranger at all. Eight-year-old Timothy O'Bryan died after eating sweets laced with cyanide. His own father, who had taken out life insurance on the boy, was convicted of the murder and executed.

Tampering is not completely unknown. In 1959 a dentist in Fremont, California, handed out candy-coated laxatives to trick-or-treaters, and around 30 children were sickened. That is why Best's finding is about serious harm from strangers, not a promise that no one has ever done anything foolish or cruel.

Why the myth stuck

Best calls the fear Halloween sadism, borrowing a phrase from a 1974 magazine article, and treats it as a modern legend. A sensational 1970 newspaper piece listed razor blades, laxatives and sleeping pills with little evidence. The fear then flared after real frightening events, such as the 1982 Tylenol poisonings, even though no wave of Halloween poisonings followed.

The legend also changed what children were given. Earlier in the century, Halloween was more about pranks and homemade goodies. During the 1950s and 1960s, sweet makers advertised heavily around Halloween, and factory-wrapped sweets became the normal treat. Today the US Food and Drug Administration still advises families to eat only commercially wrapped treats, which leaves little room for homemade ones.

Best's view is that the legend expresses a wider worry: that the world is full of dangers we cannot control, and that our children are at risk from people we do not know.

The real danger on Halloween night

Halloween does carry a real risk, and it is traffic. A study in JAMA Pediatrics looked at 42 years of American road deaths and found pedestrians were about 43 per cent more likely to be killed on Halloween evening than on nearby evenings. Children aged four to eight faced the biggest jump in risk, with deaths peaking around dusk.

The lead researcher's advice is simple: reflective strips on costumes, a torch or glow stick, masks that do not block vision, and looking both ways before crossing. Sorting the sweets is still fun, but holding hands at the kerb matters more.

Timeline

1. 1959A Fremont, California dentist hands out candy-coated laxatives; about 30 children are sickened.
2. 1970A sensational newspaper report lists razor blades and drugs in treats; a Detroit boy's heroin death is wrongly blamed on candy.
3. 1974Timothy O'Bryan is poisoned in Texas by his own father, not a stranger.
4. 1982The Tylenol poisonings spark new Halloween fears, but no wave of candy poisonings follows.
5. 1985Joel Best and a student publish their study of Halloween sadism reports since 1958.
6. 2018A JAMA Pediatrics study finds pedestrian deaths rise about 43 per cent on Halloween.