NEW YORK— In a move that stunned listeners and confused biologists, conservative commentator Rush Limbaugh checked himself into a rehabilitation facility for addiction to oxytocin.

“You know I have always tried to be honest with you and open about my life,” Limbaugh said in a statement on his nationally syndicated radio show. “I need to tell you today that part of what you have heard and read is correct. I freakin’ love oxytocin.”

Limbaugh has previously been criticized for telling a black caller to “take that bone out of your nose and call me back,” firing shots at President Clinton’s motorcade, bribing judges deciding the 2000 election, shooting down Paul Wellstone’s plane, making comments on ESPN considered to be racist, slapping two shell-shocked soldiers on their return from Iraq and admitting a separate addiction to painkillers.

Limbaugh’s listeners have organized candlelight vigils and other forms of support for him at this difficult time. “Drug addicts are people, too,” said Ditto McNutt, who listens to Limbaugh’s show on a regular basis. “Rush needs to be treated for what he is: a human being with a human problem.”

When told that Rush Limbaugh advocates throwing drug addicts in jail, McNutt replied, “Huh.”

The revelation has caused a great uproar among biologists. “Oxytocin is a hormone released by the pituitary gland,” David Ackerly of the Department of Biological Sciences at Stanford University said. “Its purposes are to stimulate uterine contractions during birth and flow of milk from the mammary glands. Why Rush Limbaugh would need either of these functions I am not at liberty to say.”

Members of the web site FreeRepublic.com (“A Conservative News Forum”) have dismissed the biology findings as “liberal propaganda.” Several have called upon Governator Schwarzenegger to “terminate” the biologists at Stanford and other universities in California.

If the biologists’ claims regarding oxytocin are found to be true, Limbaugh’s addiction might well be the most shocking story about a conservative pundit since the discovery of Ann Coulter’s Adam’s apple

It could not be confirmed as of press time whether Limbaugh stated on his show, “There’s milk coming out of my nipples!”