Roasted chicken marinated with Nyquil? Health officials are warning the public of the dangers surrounding the latest deadly TikTok challenge making social media rounds.
“A recent social media video challenge encourages people to cook chicken in NyQuil (acetaminophen, dextromethorphan, and doxylamine) or another similar OTC cough and cold medication, presumably to eat,” says the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) in a press release. “Social media trends and peer pressure can be a dangerous combination to your children and their friends, especially when involving misusing medicines.”
The FDA says boiling NyQuil or similar cough/cold medicine can make the solution “much more concentrated and change its properties in other ways.”
Not only could ingesting NyQuil-laced chicken be deadly, simply inhaling the vapors could allow a high amount of drugs to enter the body and injure your lungs, health officials say.
“The challenge sounds silly and unappetizing – and it is,” says the FDA. “Put simply: Someone could take a dangerously high amount of the cough and cold medicine without even realizing it.”
Officials are warning parents to stay extra vigilant because the deadly recipe uses over-the-counter drugs that are easily bought or readily available at home.
This latest TikTok trend follows a previous “challenge” that encouraged users to ingest large doses of the allergy medication, diphenhydramine, (Benadryl is an example) to produce a hallucinogenic effect.
After reports of teens being rushed to emergency rooms or even dying after the challenge, the FDA also issued a public warning of the trend’s dangerous prevalence.
How parents can keep children safe, according to the FDA:
- Keep OTC and prescription drugs away from children in a safe, inaccessible place
- Speak with children about the dangers of misusing drugs, especially those spurred by social media
- Use medication only as directed
