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Daily Record
Daily Record
Lifestyle
Jacob Rawley

Warning over dangerous 'sleepy chicken' social media challenge using cough medicine

Parents are being warned over a dangerous social media challenge that involves cooking chicken in cough medicine.

Known as the "sleepy chicken" challenge, health chiefs have warned that the viral trend is dangerous and could even cause death.

The US Food and Drug Administration - commonly referred to as the FDA - claimed that a social media video challenge encourages people to cook chicken in NyQuil, which contains acetaminophen, dextromethorphan, and doxylamine.

People are being warned not to cook chicken in the medicine, which could result in high levels of the drug entering the body.

An FDA consumer update states: "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."

A video of an American man trying the challenge appeared on TikTok, and was picked up by some US news outlets, but has since been removed from the social media app.

Any "sleepy chicken" challenge videos which appear on TikTok are deleted, and searching for the challenge redirects users to a Community Guidelines page.

A TikTok spokesperson said: "Content that promotes dangerous behaviour has no place on TikTok. This is not trending on our platform, but we will remove content if found and strongly discourage anyone from engaging in behaviour that may be harmful to themselves or others."

The challenge predates the social media app, and can be traced back to a 2017 post on anonymous imageboard website 4chan.

The FDA's recent warning states that parents should be aware of these challenges as impressionable young people may not realise the clear danger, leading to them attempting a challenge.

They said on their website that people should keep both over the counter and prescription drugs away from children, locking them away to prevent accidental overdose.

They add: "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 OTC drugs as well as with prescription drugs."

The FDA said that this was similar to a previous TikTok challenge which encouraged people to take large doses of the allergy medicine diphenhydramine to try to induce hallucinations.

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