US President Donald Trump recently suggested injecting disinfectants into patients as well as using UV radiation to treat coronavirus disease (COVID-19), prompting criticisms from medical experts and manufacturers of sanitizers.
In a briefing in White House, Trump said that he has seen how disinfectants knock COVID-19 “out in a minute,” wondering if there is a way for doctors to “do something like that by injection inside or almost a cleaning.”
“As you see, it gets in the lungs and it does a tremendous number on the lungs. So it’ll be interesting to check that. It sounds interesting to me,” he said.
Scientists, however, rebuked the suggestion, saying that it is dangerous to inject chemicals inside the body.
Medical correspondent Dr. Jon LaPook noted that there is no scenario wherein it is advisable to do such a suggestion by the president.
“Just because something works outside of the body doesn’t mean you should bring it inside the body, where it could potentially cause severe damage. The last thing you want is somebody hearing this kind of statement, and then—being very ill themselves—saying, ‘You know what, I’m going to just give it a try’,” he said.
Dr. Robert Glatter, an emergency physician at Lenox Hill Hospital in New York City, stressed that there is “absolutely no merit or any medical evidence to suggest this in any way.”
Pulmonologist John Balmes from Zuckerberg San Francisco General Hospital also noted that it is the worst thing to be put in the lungs as they are “not made to be exposed to even an aerosol of disinfectant.”
Another doctor, Kashif Mahmood, advised not to “take medical advice from Trump.”
In addition, Reckitt Benckiser Group (RB), the company that manufactures disinfectant brands Lysol and Dettol, issued a statement advising against injecting disinfectants.
The statement noted that their products should never be applied to or ingested by a person.
“ 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),” it said.
As for using UV radiation to treat the disease, experts noted that there is no strong evidence that suggests that such treatment will work for COVID-19 patients.
Trump earlier suggested that if the sunlight is effective against the virus, then it is okay for people to go out.
“It’s just a suggestion from a brilliant lab by a very, very smart, perhaps brilliant man,” he added.
