Documents from the Food and Drug Administration (FDA), the US safety watchdog, show that since 2009 at least four people were reported to have died soon after drinking Monster.  The FDA reports, which also cite one non-fatal heart attack possibly linked to Monster, emerged during the course of the family lawsuit.  Other reports included complaints of vomiting, heart tremors and chest pain from people who had consumed the drink.  Shelly Burgess, a spokesman for the FDA, said no causal link had yet been established between the deaths and the energy drink.  “When FDA receives any adverse event report of a death or an injury we take it very seriously and we investigate each report diligently,” she said. “Under the law adverse event reports serve as a signal to FDA and do not prove causation between a product or ingredient and an adverse event. We continue to investigate the five deaths and the one heart attack associated with Monster energy drinks.”  If a link is established the FDA could rule that Monster was unsafe and force the company to stop selling or alter its composition to make it safe.  Monster, the top-selling energy drink the US, is sold in Britain and, like all high energy drinks, carries a label warning of its high caffeine content.  As of December next year it will be forced to warn that its product is “not suitable for children, pregnant women and persons sensitive to caffeine”.  A spokesman for Britain’s Food Standards Agency said there were no plans to investigate Monster.  The company strenuously denied any link between the deaths and its product saying it was “unaware of any fatality anywhere that has been caused by its drinks” and that it would contest Anais’s family’s lawsuit.  Monster Beverages’ share price fell more than 14 per cent following the news of the lawsuit and the FDA investigation.  The case is likely to increase calls in Congress for more regulation of energy drinks and for curbs on the strategy of aggressively marketing to young people.  Last month, two US senators wrote to the FDA asking the watchdog to begin an investigation into the ingredients used by energy drink makers and the impact high levels of caffeine could have on young people.
The makers of Monster, an energy drink with the caffeine equivalent of seven   cans of Coca-Cola, are being sued by the family of a 14-year-old girl who   died after she consumed two of the beverages.