Poison calls spike in some areas after Trump suggests injecting disinfectant for COVID
President Donald Trump’s remarks during a White House press briefing on the coronavirus last week sparked a run on calls to poison control, media outlets report.
Maryland, Michigan, New York City, Illinois and Tennessee have reported an uptick in activity at their poison control call centers since Trump appeared to suggest injecting disinfectant could help treat COVID-19 on Thursday, according to health officials.
He later said the comment was “a very sarcastic question.”
That didn’t stop inquiring minds from phoning emergency hotlines in their respective cities and states with questions about disinfectant and the coronavirus.
“This is a reminder that under no circumstances should any disinfectant product be administered into the body through injection, ingestion or any other route,” Maryland’s Emergency Management Agency warned in a tweet Friday.
The state hotline saw upwards of 100 calls on the topic, according to the governor’s spokesperson.
Tennessee wasn’t far behind them.
The Nashville Tennessean reported Friday the state’s Poison Center, housed at Vanderbilt University Medical Center, saw a spike in calls “related to bleach, hand sanitizer and all purpose cleaners.”
“I think that people are looking for an answer and there’s a lot of misinformation on the internet,” Dr. Rebecca Bruccoleri, the center’s medical director, told The Tennessean. “I think the important thing to stress is that people need to look at reputable websites and talk to their doctors before doing any alternative therapy. That’s a good screening measure.”
Since January, Bruccoleri said she’s seen five cases of patients ingesting hydrogen peroxide — which has been falsely lauded as a cure for everything from cancer and HIV to the coronavirus, The Tennessean reported.
In New York City, the Department of Health and Mental Hygiene reportedly recorded 30 cases of exposure to household disinfectants over an 18-hour period ending Friday at 3 p.m., according to NPR. That’s compared to 13 in the same time frame last year, the department told NPR.
About two-thirds of the cases involved Lysol or bleach, NPR reported.
The Illinois Poison Control Center had to warn residents “not to ingest cleaning chemicals” after a similar spike in calls, according to NBC Chicago.
“Injecting, ingesting, or snorting household cleaners is dangerous,” Illinois Department of Public Health Director Dr. Ngozi Ezike said, NBC reported. “It is not advised, and it can be deadly.”
Ezike told NBC the health department has seen reports of Illinois residents trying to rinse out their sinuses with a “detergent solution” and mixing bleach with mouthwash to gargle.
Michigan Gov. Gretchen Whitmer also told ABC on Sunday that calls to the state’s emergency hot-line had climbed in recent days, saying “it’s really important that every one of us with a platform disseminate medically accurate information.”
“I want to say, unequivocally, no one should be using disinfectants digested to fight COVID-19. Please don’t do it. Just don’t do it,” Whitmer said, according to ABC.
