This theory, while completely untrue, has become so widespread that QAnon's followers now consider themselves members of Parliament.

According to this misinformation, liberal elites are taking adrenaline from the blood of kidnapped children. Conspiracy theories suggest that the drug provides a psychedelic experience and even offers the hope of immortality to those who take it.

While it sounds patently absurd, epinephrine conspiracy theories have now moved beyond the bloodshot eyes of YouTube investigators and into mainstream culture, such as when Dr. Phil featured a woman on his show who claimed her missing daughter was kidnapped and tortured because of the chemical.

Adrenochrome pigment is a by-product of adrenaline. That's it. Turns out, you don't need to kidnap kids and drain their blood. In fact, there are many trusted chemical suppliers - sorry, we won't link to - that sell it.

In short, QAnon's followers believe that in the deep state there is an agent named Q, who leaves behind a secret message called "Q-drop". Some have suggested that Q was none other than John F. Kennedy Jr., who is still alive and should have given us an October surprise as Trump's running mate. (He didn't.)

There's an old saying that you should never attribute to malice that which can be explained by stupidity, but in the case of QAnon, Their conspiracy theories are a fashion helping of both. "QAnon is tapping into both conservative mistrust of liberals as well as the ubiquity of misinformation out there, "Pierre says.

For conspiracy theorists, adrenochrome represents a mystical psychedelic favored by the global elites for drug-crazed satanic rites, derived from torturing children to harvest their most popular films -- a kind of real life staging of the Pixar movie Monsters, Inc. "QAnon also likes to say that Monsters, Inc. is Hollywood telling on itself," says QAnon researcher Mike Rains, "because the plot of scaring kids to get energy is what they really do."

"One of the central conspiracy theories circulating in the QAnon movement is that Satan-worshiping pedophile liberals in the Deep country are behind an international child sex trafficking ring," "Said Joseph Pierre, acting director of the mental health community care System at the VA Greater Los Angeles Healthcare System. "One of the more marginal aspects of the theory is that they get epinephrine from children and self-administer it as a kind of youth elixir."

The problem is that belief in something like adrenochrome and Q can translate into action, 13, "Belief in misinformation, and more importantly acting on misinformation, always carries a potential of danger. When it comes to misinformation in the form of conspiracy theories, That danger took be avoiding vaccination, leading to outbreaks of measles, or failure to contain COVID - 19," says Pierre.

According to Timothy Caulfield, Canada Research Chair in Health Law and Policy at the University of Alberta, who studies misinformation, we're in a "golden age" of the stuff right now. The problem of inaccurate information being spewed so quickly and at such a high volume these days led the World Health Organization to declare in early 2020 that we're in the middle of an "infodemic." Especially when it's laced with sensationalism, misinformation like the adrenochrome conspiracy theory tends to spread faster and farther than boring, fact-based information.