Newly appointed Surgeon General Jerome Adams cautioned that the United States faces potentially life-threatening conditions.

Several signs initially alerted the Department of Health and Human Services. Despite a recovery from anemic economic growth, the country’s outlook is not entirely positive. Growth across counties remains uneven and, at times, painful. Opioid use to dull the pain has reached crisis levels. Temperatures in the country are running abnormally high even a full year after the 2016 election, and there are no signs of the fever breaking. Finally, the legislature’s inability to pass large bills is consistent with minor recurring constipation.

The combined symptoms prompted Adams to launch the full examination, which returned dire results. “While U.S. government organs are not yet failing,” Adams warned, “They are coming dangerously close.”

The report reveals that the United States faces mounting complications from internal trauma. Citizens have been ingesting larger amounts of junk than usual. The country’s poor diet of filling yet insubstantial raw information is the likely culprit of increasingly violent gut reactions. Some of the consumed material reportedly includes viral matter, with side effects ranging from minor irritation to debilitating nausea and fatigue. Even more concerning, however, is the damage an influx of foreign agents inflicted in a normally resilient system. If the country cannot eradicate these malignant actors, interference with core functions could cause irreparable damage. Defense relies on unity of effort, but the body politic’s immune system is displaying new weaknesses.

Lack of political flexibility, initially considered a benign symptom of the republic’s age, could instead mask advancing neurological failure. In layman’ terms, the right is no longer aware of what the left is doing, and vice versa. The disconnect is particularly pronounced at the extremities. The Surgeon General’s prognosis warns that, if things continue, paralysis is the best possible outcome. In the worst case scenario, the country may suffer a terminal fissure.