Dear Maggie,

I’m a young mom, and I keep hearing warnings about Halloween in the news. All the anchors say we should have our children’s candy checked or even X-rayed before we let them eat it. They talk about razor blades in apples and poisons in other treats. It’s enough to give a mom a panic attack! Do you have any thoughts on all the hype?

Signed,

Panicky Parent

Dear Panicky,

Halloween is my favorite holiday and I’m always eager to clarify misconceptions about it, and this poisoned-candy bit is one of the biggest. The real truth is that there has never ever been a single case of a child being poisoned or harmed by anything that was put into his Halloween treats by neighbors. There was one big case in the news many years ago, where a child was injured by candy, but it turned out the tainted treats had come from his own abusive home. A parent gave his own child the nasty stuff. It didn’t come from anywhere else.