POTUS Donald Trump has announced he will not be taking any responsibility for reports of people ingesting disinfectant following his comments last week.
By Grace MacRae, Express, PUBLISHED: 06:29, Tue, Apr 28, 2020 | UPDATED: 13:30, Tue, Apr 28, 2020
Last week President Trump responded to a presentation by Bill Bryan from the Department of Homeland security on how to fight COVID-19 by suggesting that injecting the body with disinfectant could serve as treatment. Following the presentation, reports began to circulate of Americans becoming ill after ingesting bleach.
During the presentation, Mr Bryan had claimed bleach can kill the virus within five minutes.
He also said Isopropyl alcohol will kill it in 30 seconds.
Following the presentation, the President of the United States made an attempt to summarise what he thought was some of the main points of the presentation.
This is when he made the suggestion which was highly controversial, and was instantly shut down by a number of medical experts.
He said: “Right, then I see the disinfectant, where it knocks it (the coronavirus) out (of the body) in a minute, one minute, and is there a way we can do something like that?
“By injection inside, almost a cleaning, because you see it gets in the lungs and does the job and does a tremendous number on the lungs so it would be interesting to check that.
“So that you’re going to have to use medical doctors for that but it sounds interesting to me, so we’ll see.”
The comments instantly gained a great deal of backlash.
One doctor who is part of Stanford medical team’s fight against the coronavirus said: “Injecting disinfectant into your body will kill you.
“While it feels completely unnecessary to even say this, people drank fish tank cleaner containing chloroquine because of what they heard from rumors about the substance.
“We must fight deadly misinformation no matter how stupid.”
After seeing the clip, a second doctor tweeted: “As a physician, I can’t recommend injecting disinfectant into the lungs or using UV radiation inside the body to treat COVID-19.
“Don’t take medical advice from Trump,” he warned.
Following reports of Americans being taken ill after ingesting bleach, there has been mounting pressure for the president to take responsibility for what many deem to be reckless comments.
Maryland’s Republican governor Larry Hogan said that his state’s health officials have received “hundreds” of inquiries about the safety of ingesting cleaning products after Trump last week raised the idea.
When asked at the latest press briefing if he takes any responsibility for reports of people ingesting disinfectant after his own remarks, Trump reportedly said: “No, I don’t.”
However, the US President seemed a lot more keen to discuss North Korean leader Kim Jong-Un, who is rumoured to have died during heart surgery.
Trump claimed he knows the truth about North Korean leader Kim Jong-un but can not disclose what he knows to the public.
Trump responded to a reporter’s question about Kim’s well being by dismissing the notion that he is dead.
“I can’t tell you exactly. Yes, I do have a very good idea,” he said.
“But I can’t talk about it, I just wish him well. I’ve had a very good relationship with Kim Jong-un.”
He also refused to answer if Kim had replied to a letter sent to the North Korean leader back in March.
Trump hit back: “If I wasn’t president, you would have been in war with Korea, you would have been in war with North Korea if I wasn’t president.
“That I can tell you. He expected that. That I can tell you.”
