In late April, Donald Trump dangerously mused about injecting disinfectants and UV lights as possible treatments of the novel coronavirus during a White House briefing. Since then, he has claimed those remarks were made “sarcastically.” Meanwhile, the official death toll in the United States has rolled beyond 80,00, and as we know, fewer than 10% of American adults believe that number is even accurate.
As my colleague, Aysha Qamar reported in late April, after Trump’s dangerous comments about disinfectants, states reported an increase in calls to poison control hotlines. Now, according to new data from the American Association of Poison Control Centers (AAPPCC), accidental poisonings because of bleach (or similar household cleaners) nearly doubled over March and April, as first reported by Time.
As a quick refresher, this is what Trump said on April 23. “I see the disinfectant, where it knocks it out in a minute,” he stated in part. “One minute. And is there a way we can do something like that, by injection inside or almost a cleaning?”
Here is that clip, including, of course, Dr. Deborah Birx’s viral reaction to his comments.
“This is not willy-nilly, off-the-cuff, maybe-this-will-work advice. This is dangerous,” Craig Spencer, director of global health in emergency medicine at New York-Presbyterian/Columbia University Medical Center stressed to The Washington Post in an interview.
Even the manufacturer of Lysol advised people not to do this.
As found by the AAPCC, about 3,400 people reported cases of accidental poisonings due to household disinfectants in March, and 3,609 did in April of 2020. As for May 1-10, there have been 966 cases reported. How does this shape up against other periods? In the same week in May of 2019, for example, there were 573 such cases. As we know, Trump made his comments in the last week of April of this year—which, in the time of coronavirus, feels like a decade ago, but was actually just last month. When compared to April 2019, there was a 121% increase, as reported by Time. In May, accidental poisonings were up close to 70% compared to the same May 1-10 dates last year.
Trump’s “sarcastic” suggestion has been roundly debunked, including among others in politics; House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, for example, referred to his suggestion as “embalming” on a recent episode of CNN’s State of the Union. Did people represented in this data accidentally poison themselves because of what Trump said? The data, in itself, doesn’t—and can’t—prove that.
As people clean more at home, there’s, of course, an increased risk of accidental improper use (like breathing in fumes), among other possible explanations. We can’t rule out coincidence. But that there appears to be a rise since Trump’s dangerous comment (and that he made the comment at all) is deeply concerning, given that Americans report having relatively little confidence in the federal government’s handling of the coronavirus. After all, even if people are accidentally poisoning themselves in efforts to treat or prevent the virus because someone who isn’t Trump floated the idea, that still points to the bigger picture issue of the federal government not being a reliable, consistent, or trustworthy source of handling this public health crisis.
You can reach your local poison control center by calling the Poison Help hotline: 1-800-222-1222. To save the number in your mobile phone, text POISON to 797979.
