The President had some suggestions for combating against the novel coronavirus in the White House briefing room on April 23. A presentation had taken place that explained how disinfectant could be used to fight the virus on surfaces and in the air, as well as sunlight or high temperatures. Trump suggested that scientists test whether injecting disinfectant into the body or applying intense light to someone, would help someone recover from COVID-19.
“So, supposing we hit the body with a tremendous, whether it’s ultraviolet or just very powerful light, and I think you said, that hasn’t been checked, but you’re going to test it. And then I said, supposing it brought the light inside the body, which you can either do either through the skin or some other way, and I think you said you’re going to test that too, sounds interesting,” Trump stated during the press briefing, according to Business Insider. He was speaking to William N. Bryan, the acting undersecretary for science and technology at the Department of Homeland Security. Bryan had just given the presentation on how high temperatures and disinfectants kill the virus on surfaces.
Trump went on to discuss the effects of disinfectants,
“And I then I see the disinfectant, where it knocks it out in one minute and is there a way you can do something like that by injection inside, or almost a cleaning. Because you see it gets in the lungs, and it does a tremendous number on the lungs. So it’d be interesting to check that. So you’re going to have to use medical doctors, but it sounds interesting to me, so we’ll see. But the whole concept of the light, the way it goes in one minute, that’s pretty powerful.”
Many doctors, alongside the makers of Lysol, were quick to dispute the remarks made by the President. Many took to social media to stress the danger of injecting these toxic substances into the body and especially lungs.
Mark Gomelsky, Professor of Molecular Biology at the University of Wyoming stated,
“Disinfectants are great at killing cells on surfaces. Coronavirus that causes COVID-19 is surrounded by a membrane derived from the cells produced it. This membrane is very gentle and is easily destroyed by detergents (soap) present in most commercial disinfectants. Therefore, using disinfectants or soap to remove viruses from surfaces is a prudent strategy. When a disinfectant is injected or digested, it kills cells that come in contact with it, regardless of whether or not these cells contain the virus. Because most disinfectants are stable, after killing the first layer of cells which they contacted, they will proceed to indiscriminately destroy other cells. The damage to the patient will be by far greater than the damage to the virus or the damage caused by the virus. It simply is impossible to eliminate all viruses without killing the patient first.”
The Friday after the press briefing, April 24, Trump was questioned about his comments during a bill signing in the Oval Office and asked to elaborate on them. Trump denied the seriousness of his statements. “I was asking a question sarcastically to reporters like you just to see what would happen,” stated Trump, according to the Washington Post.
Many speculated that Trump claimed his remarks were sarcastic in response to the overwhelmingly negative feedback he got for his suggestions. However, in the event that what he said was, in fact, sarcastic and motivated by a desire to get a reaction from reporters, many have argued that now is not the time to make light of the seriousness of the pandemic by “jokingly” offering dangerous advice. “This is not willy-nilly, off-the-cuff, maybe-this-will-work advice. This is dangerous,” stated Craig Spencer, the director of global health in emergency medicine at New York-Presbyterian/Columbia University Medical Center, according to the Washington Post. Many people revere the President, trusting his judgment wholly, and might not recognize his incredibility on this subject, putting them at risk of making very dangerous decisions to combat the virus.
