(Adds Trump quote, industry reaction)
By Kate Kelland and Raphael Satter
LONDON/WASHINGTON, April 24 (Reuters) - U.S. President
Donald Trump's musings on whether injecting disinfectants might
treat COVID-19 have horrified medical professionals and raised
fresh concerns that his stream-of-consciousness briefings could
push frightened people to poison themselves with untested
treatments.
An international chorus of doctors and health experts urged
people not to drink or inject disinfectant on Friday after Trump
a day earlier suggested that scientists should investigate
inserting the cleaning agent into the body as a way to cure
COVID-19, the respiratory illness caused by the new coronavirus.
Initially, the White House said that Trump's comments were
being taken out of context. Later, Trump backtracked further,
said he was just being sarcastic.
"I was asking a question sarcastically to reporters like you
just to see what would happen," Trump told reporters at the
White House.
Paul Hunter, a professor of medicine at Britain's University
of East Anglia, said injecting disinfectants likely would kill
anyone who tried it.
"This is one of the most dangerous and idiotic suggestions
made so far in how one might actually treat COVID-19," Hunter
told Reuters.
"It is hugely irresponsible because, sadly, there are people
around the world who might believe this sort of nonsense and try
it out for themselves," Hunter added.
Trump said at his daily news briefing on Thursday that
scientists should explore whether inserting ultraviolet light or
disinfectant into the bodies of people infected with the
coronavirus might help them clear the disease.
"Is there a way we can do something like that by injection,
inside, or almost a cleaning?" Trump asked. "It would be
interesting to check that."
Trump also has promoted an anti-malaria drug called
hydroxychloroquine to treat people with COVID-19 even though its
effectiveness is unproven and there are concerns about heart
issues. The U.S. Food and Drug Administration on Friday
cautioned against using hydroxychloroquine in COVID-19 patients
outside of hospitals and clinical trials, citing risks of
serious heart rhythm problems.
The American Cleaning Institute, an group representing the
U.S. cleaning products industry, said in a statement,
"Disinfectants are meant to kill germs or viruses on hard
surfaces. Under no circumstances should they ever be used on
one's skin, ingested or injected internally."
Reckitt Benckiser, a British company that manufactures the
household disinfectants Dettol and Lysol, issued a statement
warning people not to ingest or inject its products.
There were early signs that at least some Americans were
preparing to act on Trump's comments. A spokesman for Maryland's
governor wrote on Twitter that the state's Emergency Management
Agency had received more than 100 calls about the use of bleach
to treat COVID-19.
TORRENT OF RIDICULE
Trump's suggestion unleashed a torrent of ridicule online,
with one comedian on social media app TikTok miming the action
of injecting bleach into her veins like a drug.
On Twitter, journalists shared a video of Dr. Deborah Birx,
the coordinator of the White House task force on the
coronavirus, who appeared to look down, hunch her shoulders, and
blink rapidly as Trump told the briefing that disinfectant "does
a tremendous number on the lungs."
While UV light is known to kill viruses contained in
droplets in the air, doctors have said there is no way it could
be introduced into the human body to target cells infected with
the coronavirus.
"Neither sitting in the sun, nor heating will kill a virus
replicating in an individual patient's internal organs," said
Penny Ward, a professor in pharmaceutical medicine at Kings
College London and chair of the Education and Standards
Committee of the Faculty of Pharmaceutical Medicine.
"Drinking bleach kills. Injecting bleach kills faster. Don't
do either!" she added.
Parastou Donyai, director of pharmacy practice and a
professor of social and cognitive pharmacy at the University of
Reading, said Trump's comments were shocking and unscientific.
Donyai said people worried about the new coronavirus and the
disease it causes should seek help from a qualified doctor or
pharmacist, and "not take unfounded and off-the-cuff comments as
actual advice."
Donyai said previous comments by Trump touting
hydroxychloroquine had already been linked to people "mistakenly
poisoning themselves."
Robert Reich, a professor of public policy at the University
of California at Berkeley and a former U.S. labor secretary,
added on Twitter: "Trump's briefings are actively endangering
the public's health. Please don't drink disinfectant."
The suggestion that bleach and related compounds are a
"miracle cure" has a history in America's conspiracist fringes.
Last August, the U.S. Food and Drug Administration issued a
health warning https://www.fda.gov/news-events/press-announcements/fda-warns-consumers-about-dangerous-and-potentially-life-threatening-side-effects-miracle-mineral
about MMS, or "miracle mineral solution," that was being sold
online with instructions to mix it with lemon or lime juice
before drinking. The combination forms a powerful, dangerous
bleaching agent, the FDA said.
The U.S. Justice Department last week was granted by a court
in Florida a temporary injunction to halt the sale of industrial
bleach products by an organization called Genesis II Church of
Health and Healing, which was marketing it as a cure for autism
and AIDS.
(Reporting by Kate Kelland; Additional reporting by Steve
Holland, Lisa Lambert, and Raphael Satter in Washington; Editing
by William Maclean, Howard Goller and Will Dunham)
