Kotaku asked Nintendo, and they hav confirmed that they apply a non-toxic, bittering agent, to the cards to avoid the ingestion. Oh, and they've used Denatonium Benzoate which, according to wikipedia, is the "most bitter chemical compound known".
I'm glad Nintendo has gone with something like this for safety purposes, but I'm still wondering why would a journalist lick the card in the first place?
Please excuse my bad English.
Former gaming PC: i5-4670k@stock (for now), 16Gb RAM 1600 MHz and a GTX 1070
Current gaming PC: R5-7600, 32GB RAM 6000MT/s (CL30) and a RX 9060XT 16GB
Steam / Live / NNID : jonxiquet Add me if you want, but I'm a single player gamer.