(WHDH) — A man drank a highly-toxic cleaning product over the weekend after President Trump wondered about the prospect of using disinfectants to treat coronavirus during a White House briefing last week, health officials said.
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Since Trump mentioned Thursday that researchers were looking at the effects of disinfectants on the virus and wondered aloud if they could be injected into people, the Kansas Poison Control Center has reported a 40 percent increase in cases involving cleaning solutions, the Wichita Eagle reported.
“A fellow over the weekend drank a product because of the advice he’d received,” said Lee Norman, a Kansas health officer.
Norman didn’t reveal exactly whose advice the man was following, but the incident unfolded just days after Trump said “it would be interesting to check” if injecting disinfectants can prevent the coronavirus from doing a “tremendous number on the lungs.”
Trump’s remarks prompted immediate concern from the parent company of Lysol disinfectant.
“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),” said the statement from Reckitt Benckiser.
The condition of the victim was not immediately known.
Health officials are now warning the public that drinking bleach and other chemical-based cleaning products is dangerous and possibly fatal.
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