[robertpelloni]

They overdosed is my guess. The woman reported they each took "a spoonful" in soda. A teaspoon is 4 grams. An overdose is 2 grams. I don't know why this isn't reported anywhere.

It was probably the right chemical, as far as I can tell there isn't an aquarium specific formulation, Chloroquine Phosphate is Chloroquine Phosphate. You could just as easily overdose on the prescription if you downed a handful of pills.

I'm upset they didn't report this correctly because now people can still die from an overdose and people who might have had access to the aquarium chemical might have saved themselves with proper dosage.

[belorn]

As I understand it, the aquarium cleaning product in question is a mix of formaldehyde, hydrogen peroxide, copper sulphate and chloroquine. It is used to treat the fish parasite Amyloodinium ocellatum.

Taking a spoonful of that stuff is always a very bad idea.

Even if one could find "pure" Chloroquine Phosphate without all the other stuff, Chloroquine Phosphate is not the same as Chloroquine Phosphate. You can charge or remove electrons and still call it Chloroquine Phosphate, you can put it into different crystal formations, and I am probably forgetting other tricks that exist in chemistry to completely alter the behavior of a drug.