Cooking chicken in cough syrup
NyQuil chicken is not just "silly" and "uninviting". The challenge that involves cooking chicken in NyQuil, the cough and cold syrup widespread in the United States based on paracetamol, acetaminophen, dextromethorphan HBr and doxylamine succinate, would be "potentially dangerous" according to the US Food and drug administration. In the communication, published on the agency's website, users are warned: to have negative effects on health and damage to the lungs, it is enough just to inhale the boiled substance, without ingesting it. In fact, as stated in the note, boiling the medicine would increase its concentration.Why every time we fall into the legend of online challenges (and what are the real problems of minors online) As reported by the Guardian, the NyQuil chicken, also called Sleepy chicken challenge appeared for the first time on 4Chan in 2017, the imageboard site created in 2003, which allows users, mostly men between 18 and 25, to post content anonymously. Many teenagers are also active on the platform.
Immediately after the publication of the notice, which took place on September 15, 2022, some videos of accounts that try to warn users about the practice started to go viral on TikTok. In the same document, released by the agency on the site, we also read of a previous trend of TikTok that had threatened the health of the youngest, prompting them to inhale a large amount of a medicine for the treatment of allergy based on diphenhydramine, to have a hallucinogenic effect.
Cooking chicken in NyQuil syrup is just one of the many "challenges" born on social networks that endanger the lives of users, usually very young. Among others, the Blackout challenge which has led many boys to resist as much as possible with a lace tightly around their neck, while the Fire challenge involves setting fire to an object and playing with flames.
To avoid improper use of medicines by children and adolescents, the US Food and drug administration suggests parents to hide Otd-based medicines, such as NyQuil, from their children, but above all to open a dialogue with them on substance abuse, which can be dangerous both in the case of drugs such as cough and cold syrup, and in that of other medicines that are sold by prescription.
Poison Control Center: chicken cooking in cough syrup trend is dangerous
A dangerous and potentially deadly trend is sweeping social media that entices people to cook chicken in cough syrup or cold and flu medicine, prompting an expert at the Iowa Poison Control Center to say never do this.
Registered nurse Tammy Noble, the Sioux City-based center’s education manager, says this practice can be exceptionally hazardous, depending on what’s used, and she calls it a recipe for disaster.
“There’s different medicines that are in the cough syrup and chicken can absorb that cough syrup,” Noble says. “Some of those ingredients could be things like acetaminophen, which is the active ingredient in Tylenol. Acetaminophen is safe in recommended doses but it can cause liver damage and even death when you get overdoses of it.”
The U.S. Food and Drug Administration has issued an advisory, warning consumers that cooking chicken in these medications is dangerous and Noble confirms, it could be lethal. “Cough suppressants can cause heart palpitations and agitations, sometimes even hallucinations depending on the amount that was taken,” Noble says, “and it also has things like decongestants which have an effect on your blood pressure, can cause heart attacks and headaches if they’re used in high, high doses.”
There’s also the risk of food poisoning if the chicken isn’t properly cooked, and if the red, green, or blue liquid soaks into the meat, it’ll be hard to distinguish its color. In addition, cooking chicken in a marinade of medication could give off highly concentrated vapors which could critically damage the lungs.
So, why would people even consider following this TikTok challenge? “I’m not sure if it’s supposed to be better for sleep or if it’s just a trend,” Noble says, “or if they’re looking for alternative ways to keep themselves from getting sick, whether it’s from just regular winter/fall germs or whether it’s with the COVID-19 infections, we’re not really sure.” Much like with the Tide Pod Challenge a few years ago, in which people shot videos of themselves while eating liquid laundry detergent pods, Noble says she’s not surprised people would try cooking chicken in NyQuil.
“Working at the poison center, we always think we’ve heard it all until we answer the call, and then it’s like, ‘Nope, haven’t heard that one before,’ and people never cease to amaze us at some of the things that they will attempt to do,” Noble says, “maybe not necessarily knowing how unsafe it may be, or maybe they -do- know how unsafe it is and they don’t care.”
As ridiculous as the Tide Pod Challenge may have seemed to most of us, the Consumer Product Safety Commission reports it killed at least ten people, none of them in Iowa. Noble says as yet, she’s taken no calls at the hotline about this latest chicken recipe, at least not yet. Reach the Iowa Poison Control Center any day, any time at 800-222-1222.