Calls to poison control centres spike in US after Trump's disinfectant comments

KUALA LUMPUR (April 27) Calls to poison control centres in at least four US states “have spiked over the past few days” after US President Donald Trump appeared to suggest injecting disinfectant should be studied as a method to treat Covid-19, Newsweek reported yesterday.

The news magazine reported that “authorities in New York, Michigan, Maryland and Illinois have reported increases in calls to their poison control centres pertaining to exposure to household cleaning products”.

The same report also revealed that the New York City Department of Health and Mental Hygiene told National Public Radio that they “received 30 calls in the 18 hours following Trump's comments, a figure that nearly doubled the 13 cases that occurred during the same period in 2019”. The department spokesperson Pedro F Frisneda said “10 cases were related to bleach exposure, nine to Lysol and the remaining 11 to various other household cleaning products”.

Meanwhile. govermors. Larry Hogan of Maryland and Gretchen Whitmer of Michigan said yesterday that Trump’s comments “musing” about whether disinfectant could be injected as a remedy for Covid-19 “caused a surge in phone calls to emergency hotlines in their states inquiring about its truth”, reported The Vox website.

“When misinformation comes out, or you just say something that pops in your head, it does send a wrong message,” Hogan told on US broadcaster ABC. 

Whitmer said she had also seen a “worrying uptick in calls about ingesting disinfectants”, reported ABC.

“When the person with the most powerful position on the planet is encouraging people to think about disinfectants, whether it was serious or not, people listen.

“And so we have seen an increase in numbers of people calling poison control, and so I think it’s really important that every one of us with a platform disseminate medically accurate information,” Whitmer added.

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