WASHINGTON — As part of his alleged plan to find the cause and cure for autism, US Health Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. has ordered the creation of a national registry of all Americans with autism as well as those that have played a Sonic the Hedgehog game.
“For years, I’ve tried to warn people of the link between vaccines and autism, only to be dismissed by so-called ‘scientists,’” explained Kennedy in a recent press conference. “But in the process, I’ve neglected something only a fool could deny is connected to the recent autism epidemic: Sonic games. Ever since the Blue Blur made his debut in 1991, autism rates have skyrocketed, and countless of those poor, useless children claim to be fans of the series. I don’t know for a fact that Sonic games are the cause of autism, but give me enough personal information and I’ll know it in a few months.”
Disability advocates, human rights organizations, and Sega shareholders have denounced Kennedy’s plan as the beginning of a sinister eugenicist plot, though the Trump administration insists it’s all purely in the interest of national health.
“Any rumors you’ve heard of this being a pretext to send innocent American citizens to concentration camps is simply absurd,” said NIH director Jay Bhattacharya. “We already know how to do that without autism, why make up a reason? No, once we have the names, addresses, and financial information of every single American who’s ever touched a Sonic game, that data will be used strictly for scientific research. Even now, we’re making great strides into uncovering the link between Sonic and autism.” With this remark, Bhattacharya removed the last screw from the case of the Sega Genesis he was taking apart. “Did you know that the original Sonic machine used ‘blast processing?’ I don’t know what that is, but until we know more I can’t rule out that they blasted autism directly into children’s minds.”
While the NIH collects the private medical records of every person diagnosed with autism in the United States, Kennedy has begun consulting various retailers and financial institutions to collect every known instance of a mainline Sonic game being purchased, with hopes of including spin-offs and crossovers by the end of the summer.
“While we’ve been contacted by Secretary Kennedy about our records, we’re appalled by this administration’s efforts to breach our customers’ privacy,” confirmed GameStop CEO Ryan Cohen. “GameStop will not disclose decades’ worth of other people’s confidential personal information so a corrupt government can chase harmful pseudoscience. Not unless they paid us a lot of money for it. Like, a hundred dollars at least.”
At press time, Secretary Kennedy was musing if a real-life recreation of the Carnival Night Zone barrel would make the wellness farms easier or harder to escape.
