British company Reckitt Benckiser, maker of disinfectants Lysol and Dettol, found itself having to issue a warning in a statement following a briefing by President Trump and the White House Coronavirus Task Force, imploring its customers to not consume its products, CNN reported.
In his April 23 briefing, the president appeared to float the idea of “injecting” disinfectants into the body to cleanse it of the coronavirus.
Following a statement by Bill Bryan — who leads the Department of Health and Homeland Security’s science and technology division — on the effect of sunlight and heat on the virus when it’s on surfaces or airborne, the president mused on using that “inside the body,” NBC News reported.
Then the president moved on to disinfectants, saying “I see the disinfectant that knocks it out in a minute, one minute. And is there a way we can do something like that by injection inside or almost a cleaning? As you see, it gets in the lungs, it does a tremendous number on the lungs, so it would be interesting to check that.”
Medical professionals quickly quashed that idea.
“I certainly wouldn’t recommend the internal ingestion of a disinfectant,” FDA chief Dr. Stephen Hahn told CNN .
“This notion of injecting or ingesting any type of cleansing product into the body is irresponsible and it’s dangerous,” Dr. Vin Gupta added to NBC News. “It’s a common method that people utilize when they want to kill themselves.”
While the president did not specify which disinfectant one might use, the maker of Lysol nevertheless issued a statement.
“As a global leader in health and hygiene products, we must be clear that under no circumstance should our disinfectant products be administered into the human body (through injection, ingestion or any other route),” the company said in a press release .
“We have a responsibility in providing consumers with access to accurate, up-to-date information as advised by leading public health experts.”
The White House has pushed back on the notion that the president recommended ingesting or injecting cleaning products.
A statement from White House Press Secretary Kayleigh McEnanay reads, “President Trump has repeatedly said that Americans should consult with medical doctors regarding coronavirus treatment, a point he emphasized again during yesterday’s briefing. Leave it to the media to irresponsibly take President Trump out of context and run with negative headlines.”
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Both disinfectant-related poisonings and conspiracy theories around bleach and UV light have been on the rise in 2020.
As NBC News reported, in March the Department of Justice has had to crack down on sales of so-called Medical Mineral Solution, or MMS, being marketed in conspiracy theorist circles. The DOJ described MMS as “a chemical product which, when combined with the included activator, creates a powerful bleach product that the defendants market for oral ingestion.”
And, according to CDC data, calls about poisonings involving disinfectants have risen 20% in the first months of 2020 compared to the same time frame of 2019, CNN reported.
