Dear Leader Repeats Internet Infodemic “Cures”
President Trump used the daily White House news briefing on Thursday to suggest scientists should test beaming ultraviolet light “inside the body” and injecting disinfectants in an effort to find new coronavirus remedies.
“Supposing you hit the body with ultraviolet or just very powerful light," Trump said. "And I think you said that hasn’t been checked, but you’re going to test it? Then I said supposing that you brought the light inside the body, either through the skin or some other way. And I think you said, you’re gonna test that too."
The New York Times initially tried to “both sides” this gibberish, but had to walk it back after a social media storm.
https://twitter.com/nytimes/status/1253719616603541504?s=20
The White House issued a statement this morning calling the media irresponsible, reminding reporters that the President always says people should consult their physicians (before making one of his wacko statements).
Trump’s defenders over at Breitbart News assured their readers that the president’s meaning didn’t match up with the words used.
Trump used the word “inject,” but what he meant was using a process — which he left “medical doctors” to define — in which patients’ lungs might be cleared of the virus, given new knowledge about its response to light and other factors.
I dunno. I saw the president’s statements, and while he was obviously riffing on an earlier presentation, there can be no doubt as to the words coming out of his mouth. A better human might have said something along the lines of “I misspoke” or even “I was wrong.”
Realizing these explanations weren’t cutting it, later on Friday, the White House went with the “just kidding” defense:
https://twitter.com/Olivianuzzi/status/1253727844439658496?s=20
UPDATE: Internet Fraudster Says He Wrote Trump, via the Guardian
The leader of the most prominent group in the US peddling potentially lethal industrial bleach as a “miracle cure” for coronavirus wrote to Donald Trump at the White House this week.
In his letter, Mark Grenon told Trump that chlorine dioxide – a powerful bleach used in industrial processes such as textile manufacturing that can have fatal side-effects when drunk – is “a wonderful detox that can kill 99% of the pathogens in the body”. He added that it “can rid the body of Covid-19”.
A few days after Grenon dispatched his letter, Trump went on national TV at his daily coronavirus briefing at the White House on Thursday and promoted the idea that disinfectant could be used as a treatment for the virus. To the astonishment of medical experts, the US president said that disinfectant “knocks it out in a minute. One minute!”
The company that makes Lysol felt obligated to issue a press release warning consumers against ingesting its product.
Doctors rushed to caution against consumers thinking that sunlight or UV lamps would work on humans as a preventative measure.
From the Washington Post:
Other doctors stepped forward after the briefing to challenge the president, calling his comments “irresponsible,” “extremely dangerous” and “frightening” in interviews with The Post as they rushed to warn people of the dire consequences of ingesting caustic chemicals.
“We’ve heard the president trying to practice medicine for several weeks now, but this is a new low that is outside the realms of common sense or plausibility,” said Ryan Marino, a medical toxicologist and emergency physician at University Hospitals in Cleveland.
“I can understand looking to medicines that might have some effect or some sort of studies in a petri dish showing that they might work on a virus,” Marino added. “But talking about putting ultraviolet radiation inside of the human body or putting antiseptic things that are toxic to life inside of living people, it doesn’t make any sense anymore.”
Now that the administration’s promotion of anti-malaria drugs has been challenged by those darn facts, I suppose he needed something -anything- to drum up enthusiasm for re-opening the economy.
One of Trump’s “many people say” sources apparently started him down the path towards his last round of boasting about unproven treatments. And the physician who stood up and said “wait a minute” got booted out of his job. Those darn facts.
A federal vaccine expert who was ousted from his post this week felt pressured to rush out expanded access to a potential coronavirus treatment after President Trump discussed the drug with Oracle’s Larry Ellison, NBC News reported.
A source told NBC News that Dr. Rick Bright was told to put in place a national program geared to expanding access to the drug hydroxychloroquine after Ellison and the president spoke about it.
The Food and Drug Administration felt obligated on Friday to issue a warning about prescribing hydroxychloroquine to COVID-19 patients outside of hospital settings or clinical trials, mentioning “serious poisoning and death.”
“Hydroxychloroquine and chloroquine have not been shown to be safe and effective for treating or preventing COVID-19.”
The use of UV rays or disinfectants for human treatment has been roundly rejected by the health and science communities, you know, people who try to utilize facts in their assertions. Bleach and most household disinfectants are highly toxic, and exposure to UV light has been linked to skin cancer.
While the president may or may not have been responding to research about controlling the virus outside the human anatomy, there can be no doubt about the embrace of these measures on patients by conspiracy theorists and extreme alternative medicine communities.
From NBC News:
Facebook pages created in late March sold UV “sanitizer” lights, promising “a proven impact on COVID-19” and to be the “most effective way to kill viruses.” The companies, which had names like “Beam Sanitizer,” ran ads on Instagram and Facebook in March, according to Facebook's ad library. Some ads, including ones from companies including UV Sanitizers, and Uvlizer, were still active as of Friday morning. The products apparently evaded the company’s ban of ads for coronavirus miracle cures instituted last month.
In an effort to quell the impact of viral social media posts, the World Health Organization released a warning in March stating that “UV lamps should not be used to sterilize hands or other areas of skin as UV radiation can cause skin irritation.”
Conspiracy theorists, including those that center around the QAnon conspiracy, have also advocated for drinking a diluted form of bleach called Medical Mineral Solution, or MMS.
QAnon adherents falsely believe Donald Trump is secretly running a military operation to rid the government of satanic, child-eating cannibals, and many QAnon followers believe those same people are responsible for the virus. Prominent QAnon accounts celebrated Trump’s apparent nod to bleach consumption or injection, with one prominent QAnon YouTuber and MMS reseller calling it “a good ‘lung cleaner’” on Thursday night.
Trump’s attorney Rudy Guiliani appeared on Fox News, hoping to distract from criticism about the administration’s failures regarding testing. Science types all agree about tracing the spread of the COVID-19 virus, and testing is a critical part of the process.
https://twitter.com/Acyn/status/1253514106595770368?s=20
Meanwhile, more than 50,000 people are dead. And the beat goes on...
https://twitter.com/samwashdc/status/1253703066311897089?s=20
Hey folks! Be sure to like/follow Words & Deeds on Facebook. If you’d like to have each post emailed to you check out the simple subscription form on the right side of the front page.
Email me at WritetoDougPorter@Gmail.com