Last week, the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) issued a press release warning of the dangers of social media video challenges because they could turn out to be deadly.
A recent social media challenge encourages people to cook chicken in NyQuil, which contains acetaminophen, dextromethorphan, and doxylamine or another similar over-the-counter cough and cold medication, presumably to eat.
The FDA says "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. Put simply: Someone could take a dangerously high amount of the cough and cold medicine without even realizing it."
The FDA says teens have died during the “Benadryl challenge,” which includes taking a lot of the meds to hallucinate.
The FDA advises parents and guardians to keep your children safe by keep both over-the-counter and prescription drugs away from children, and lock up these medications to prevent accidental overdose.
Sit down with your children and discuss the dangers of misusing drugs and how social media trends can lead to real, sometimes irreversible, damage. Remind your children that overdoses can occur with over-the-counter drugs as well as with prescription drugs.
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