Trump’s health advice prompts frantic warnings
WASHINGTON — A slew of federal and state agencies — and the makers of laundry bleach — rebuked President Donald Trump on Friday, warning the public that his off-the-cuff medical advice and off-thewall musings in his nightly White House briefings could endanger even more lives as the country’s coronavirus death toll passed 50,000.
A day after Trump sparked a furor when he incorrectly suggested that common household disinfectants could be used as “injection inside or almost a cleaning” to kill COVID-19, the disease caused by the coronavirus, the makers of Clorox bleach warned Americans not to use cleaning products as medicine.
The Consumer Product Safety Commission issued a similar warning against ingesting products like bleach.
“Cleaning products are poisonous, America! Make sure you keep those cleaning products in their original bottles and locked up out of sight and out of reach of kids!” the agency tweeted and attributed it to its mascot, Quinn the Quarantine Fox.
The Food and Drug Administration warned that using two anti-malarial drugs that Trump has repeatedly touted as a therapeutic could have potentially lethal side-effects, citing a new study that showed increased mortality among patients in an experimental trial.
At least two other agencies publicly cautioned Americans not to test therapeutics for COVID-19 without a medical professional’s guidance.
“A reminder to all Americans — PLEASE always talk to your health provider first before administering any treatment/medication to yourself or a loved one. Your safety is paramount, and doctors and nurses are have years of training to recommend what’s safe and effective,” Surgeon General Jerome Adams tweeted.
The frantic chorus of corrections and criticism underscored the depth of concerns about the president, loath to trust experts and science over his own instincts, using his increasingly bizarre televised bully pulpit each night to casually dispense misguided medical advice.
“I’m not a doctor,” Trump said Thursday. “But I’m, like, a person that has a good youknow-what,” he added, pointing to his head.
The FDA’s warning Friday made clear that hydroxychloroquine and chloroquine, the anti-malaria drugs that Trump first celebrated weeks ago as a potential panacea, can cause dangerous abnormalities in heart rhythm in coronavirus patients and should be used only in clinical trials or hospitals where patients can be closely monitored for heart problems.
Warnings from the makers of Lysol products and the American Chemistry Council were also emphatic.
“Chlorine bleach and other disinfectants should never be ingested or injected into the body to treat infections such as COVID19. Such a practice could be lethal or cause serious bodily harm,” the council’s statement said.
Michigan Gov. Gretchen Whitmer, a Democrat, tweeted a similar, snarky warning that did not mention Trump by name: “Just going to leave this here: Do not consume or inject disinfectant,” she wrote. “That’s a bad idea.”
The Maryland Emergency Management Agency said it received more than 100 inquiries on an emergency hotline about whether injecting or ingesting disinfectants could help cure COVID-19.
“This is a reminder that under no circumstances should any disinfectant product be administered into the body through injection, ingestion or any other route,” it warned.
Amid the flurry of warnings and corrections Friday, the White House argued that the media had been irresponsible to quote the president, or take his words literally.