WASHINGTON DC –Declaring the rampant spread of Affluenza “a national state of emergency,” today President Obama signed into law a new $212 billion National Institutes of Health initiative to fight the nation’s crippling, and often fatal, epidemic of Affluenza.
Affluenza has long been a problem in the U.S. but recent advances in early detection have determined that it is much more widespread than previously believed. While studies show that 47 percent of Americans are inoculated from it by a pre-existing condition known as poverty, this leaves more than half of the country vulnerable.
Researchers define Affluenza as a serious cognitive disorder that alters the way our bodies respond to widespread prosperity. As the Affluenza hormone floods the bloodstream unchecked it distorts sufferers interaction with objective reality, as evidenced by a lack of empathy and generosity, and general anti-social behavior. Instead of driving down anxiety, general prosperity fills Affluenza sufferers with a desperate craving for more possessions and bigger tax breaks. This can lead to manic acquisitions of jewels and luxury properties, delusions of wisdom and, in the most acute cases, a run for national public office.
President Obama praised the bi-partisan support for the bill.
“Members on both sides of the aisle see Affluenza every day. More than half of your representatives — your congressmen, your senators — have symptoms. It’s rampant among my cabinet appointees, heads of think tanks, lobbyists, CEOs, limousine liberals and union bosses. This is a first bold step to eliminating Affluenza and the stigma that surrounds it.”
Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell called “groundbreaking” the new public/private partnership between the NIH and the Donald Trump Capital Preservation Institute, home to cutting edge research in this field.
Affluenza has long gone undiagnosed. Until as recently as 2007 it was common for Affluenza sufferers to be labeled as sociopaths, psychopaths, or narcissists. When virulent clusters first were detected in Darien, Connecticut and Palo Alto, California in 1998, researchers believed the disease targeted only white male Americans. As scientists from the Trump Institute isolated Affluenza’s symptoms, they identified undiagnosed cases throughout the NBA, in Kim Jung-Un’s family and among most of the Real Housewives of New Jersey, proving that Affluenza strikes all races and genders.
The Trump Institutes initial case-control study of the pathology paired individuals who suffer from Affluenza with a control group of asymptomatic individuals, nicknamed “suckers” by the researchers. The researchers plotted subjects’ activities of daily living on a six-pronged matrix consisting of general douchebaggery, insufficient tipping, number of Malcolm Gladwell books read, teeth whitening, frequency of attendance at destination weddings and times the charges were dropped without having to go to trial. At the conclusion of a six-year longitudinal study, Trump scientists identified two types of Affluenza: the rare Type One and the more widespread Type Two, comprising 95 percent of the cases. Type Two sufferers have the same acquisitive impulses as Type One but do not have the money to pay for their purchases.
“We used to think of these people as the backbone of our economy,” said President Obama. “Now we understand they are suffering too.”
The research grant will fund a clinical trial on a new drug, The Donald, that is a competitive receptor for the Affluenza hormone. This psychoactive topical medication can be transmitted trans dermally through a hairpiece, or applied directly to the scrotum by specially trained masseuses. The NIH will also be funding research on a different drug delivery system being tested at the Mitt Romney Research Institute and Equestrian Center at the Cayman Islands. The Romney team is experimenting with distributing the medicine through the climate control systems of all luxury vehicles with a list price above $46,000.
The mood during the signing ceremony in the East Room was one of triumph after the long hard fight for the bill. President Obama handed out memorial pens to Koch Brothers, 25 members of the Walton Family, the Clintons, Larry Ellison, Robert Redford, Jay-Z and Beyoncé, Elon Musk, and Oprah. All in attendance sported plump gold moneybags on their lapels, the worldwide symbol of Affluenza awareness. At the close of his remarks, Obama reached into his suit jacket pocket and affixed one to his lapel.
“Ich ein bin Affluenza,” he said with moist eyes.
The room erupted in applause.