Over the years, we have seen some wild and crazy social media challenges that kids have attempted. They are not the smartest challenges to take part in and the latest viral trend has the Food and Drug Administration warning against it. For this new social media challenge, people are being encouraged to cook chicken in NyQuil and other cough medicine. Yes, the newest viral trend has people trying to use NyQuil as a chicken marinade.
Needless to say, the FDA is saying this would not be a very wise choice. In a statement from the FDA, they stated it would be “silly and unappetizing” to cook chicken in cough syrup. They went on to say, “Boiling a medication can make it much more concentrated and change its properties in other ways. Even if you don’t eat the chicken, inhaling the medication’s vapors while cooking could cause high levels of the drugs to enter your body. It could also hurt your lungs.”
The FDA went on to say, “Put simply: Someone could take a dangerously high amount of the cough and cold medicine without even realizing it.”
While the FDA did not state any specific reports of people going to the emergency room after eating some of the “NyQuil chicken,” the threat is there. The FDA mentioned a previous TikTok challenge that urged people to take large doses of the allergy medicine diphenhydramine (sold under the brand name of Benadryl) to try and induce hallucinations. This challenge led to reports of teens going to the emergency room.
So, why are teens more prone to fall for these social media challenges? HealthyChildren.org stated the prefrontal cortex, the part of the brain that handles rational thought, isn’t fully developed in people until their mid-20s. Because of this, teens tend to be more impulsive than adults. They are more likely to succumb to the power of social media, which rewards risky and outlandish behavior.
As with anything else seen on social media, users had their thoughts of this newest trend. One Twitter user said, “I feel like people cooking chicken in NyQuil is the kind of problem that solves itself.” Another Twitter user said, “Why’d they call it nyquil chicken and not robitusserie.” And one more user said, “forget nyquil chicken in this house it’s all chicken vicksaloo.”
