Washington, DC—Visibly exasperated that the subject has somehow found its way into the national discussion yet again, United States Surgeon General Jerome Adams held a press conference Wednesday reminding the nation that eating cat litter does not give people the ability to fly.
The surgeon general was forced to make the public statement once again after the subject reentered the national zeitgeist.
“It pains me to have to say this once again,” Adams told the assembled reporters, “but it is the duty of my station to combat negative health practices, no matter how inexcusably ludicrous they might seem to say out loud. I repeat—for what I believe to be the tenth time in my two years in office—cat litter does not, and CANNOT, make you fly.”
On YouTube, videos of the so-called “cat litter challenge,” featuring popular influencers eating several pounds of cat litter and then flying, appear to be the cause of the most recent surge in popularity.
Some are skeptical of the surgeon general’s warning. Felicity Hawkins, a YouTube creator with over 3 million subscribers, ranted about the statement in a recent vlog.
“This is just the old guard getting all up in arms about something they don’t understand,” Hawkins stated. “Sure, some people are eating used cat litter and getting sick from it, but there are thousands—heck, millions—of people like me who eat fresh cat litter in responsible amounts. I myself have felt very close to being able to fly several times.”
Many agree at least partially with the surgeon general’s statements. Brooke the Yogi, a health blogger, felt the surgeon general’s claims were only part of the story.
“Our modern diet is missing so many things that we crave in our animal bodies, so sometimes we turn to things that have what we are missing. I think there’s something in cat litter that our bodies need but gets filtered out of our diet with all the processing that foods get now. Your body goes, ‘Oh, that, give me that, I need that,’ and you end up eating cat litter or Tide Pods.”
Despite the resistance, the surgeon general has remained firm in his opinion.
“I know that there is little I can do to stop everyone,” he lamented in a tweet from the @Surgeon_General account. “I can only hope there are at least a few who will heed this warning and not risk poisoning themselves while trying to achieve flight.”
At last count, hospitals had reported at least 24,370 cases of emergency room visits from ingesting cat litter this calendar year.
