Trump Isn’t The First To Dangerously Suggest Disinfectants Are A “Cure”

President Donald Trump is erroneously touting COVID-19 cures, from hydroxychloroquine — which he's no longer promoting because the medication didn't work — to disinfectant and ultraviolet light. What’s more distressing is that Trump's shocking remedies didn't come to him out of thin air. 

Just last week, Mark Grenon, a church leader in Florida, wrote to Trump and told him that bleach was a "miracle cure" and "a wonderful detox that can kill 99% of the pathogens in the body," and added that the disinfectant could "rid the body of COVID-19," The Guardian reports. It is unknown if Trump read the letter, but now Cristina Cuomo is saying bleach is helping her treat her coronavirus diagnosis as well.

Cristina, wife of CNN reporter Chris Cuomo and sister-in-law to New York Gov. Andrew Cuomo, tested positive for COVID-19 and said she used a bleach bath as a way to battle the virus. 

"Why the bath?" she wrote on her blog. "To combat the radiation and metals in my system and oxygenate it."

Her doctor reportedly told her, "We want to neutralise heavy metals because they slow up the electromagnetic frequency of our cells, which is our energy field, and we need a good flow of energy. Clorox is sodium chloride — which is technically salt. Clorox is made by introducing an electric current to water and sodium chloride (saline), creating sodium hypochlorite. There is no danger in doing this. It is a simple naturopathic treatment that has been used for over 75 years to oxygenate the cells," and added, "Household bleach is not chlorine." Clorox, however, disagrees with that statement. On their website, Clorox stated, bleach is not “recommended for personal hygiene of any kind.”

Anti-vaxxers and autism sceptics have also been dangerously using bleach as a form of medicine for quite some time. The bleach substance that is being hailed by anti-vaxxers is called Miracle Mineral Solution, and the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) made a stern warning last year telling people not to drink it. 

"If you're drinking 'Miracle' or 'Master' Mineral Solution or other sodium chlorite products, stop now. The FDA has received many reports that these products, sold online as 'treatments,' have made consumers sick."

Last year, NBC reported that parents were orally and anally administering bleach-based treatments to their children to cure them of their autism. Others claim bleach can cure diabetes and AIDS. Parents discussed a procedure in a Facebook group and shared how their children were reacting to it. 

"Have not been able to get 5 year old to cooperate with enemas," a mother from Massachusetts wrote, according to NBC News. Another said the enema "broke in half" as their child tried to escape. 

Medical advice against bleach has not stopped some from believing that it is the cure for COVID-19 or other health issues. When Trump, who once theorised that vaccines caused autism and now is pro-vaccines, "sarcastically" suggested disinfectant, Jordan Sather, a QAnon conspiracy movement leader with more than 150,000 followers, praised the president for touting bleach as a “cure.”

"Do you realise how freaking cheap and easy it would be to mass produce chlorine dioxide for 100,000's of people?" Sather said in a now-deleted tweet. "We could wipe out COVID quick! The biggest hurdle is education, which is difficult with how s--t our media is. Doctors should be learning about this stuff," he tweeted after the president's remarks.

Twitter deleted Sather's tweet and said the company would be removing some coronavirus tweets that might be harmful. 

"We're prioritising the removal of COVID-19 content when it has a call to action that could potentially cause harm. As we've said previously, we will not take enforcement action on every Tweet that contains incomplete or disputed information about COVID-19," the company said in a statement provided to Business Insider.  

Soon after Trump suggested people ingest disinfectant, the manufacturer of Lysol and Dettol released a statement saying, "As a global leader in health and hygiene products, we must be clear that under no circumstance should our disinfectant products be administered into the human body (through injection, ingestion or any other route).” 

Science experts also weighed in about the dangers of exposure to ultraviolet light. In an interview with the Seattle-Times, Brian Heimbuch, a biologist, said that he has been getting multiple calls from "nurses to some guy building a UVC box in their basement." He said out of the three "types of ultraviolet light, UVC is the deadly one." He added, "It scares me that people are going to hurt themselves with UVC." 

While Trump is claiming sarcasm as his way out of giving unwarranted medical advice, he might have seen the error of his ways — during Friday's press conference, he did not take any questions from reporters. According to sources speaking to CNN, Trump is being advised by his top aides to stop appearing in daily White House briefings, because the long-winded nature of the briefings may be hurting him more than helping.