[brandon272]

> I'm not fan of Trump, but the attacks on him over this and hydroxychloroquine are ridiculous.

Even without going into the absurdity of any of his specific claims, he should not be standing at a podium spitballing and speculating about potential treatments that he may or may not have heard about. Kind of the opposite of what is required from a leader during a crisis, and the impacts of doing so can actually be pretty devastating.

[austingulati]

> impacts of doing so can actually be pretty devastating.

Source on this? I have heard about the couple that ate the aquarium chemicals, a bit of a stretch unless I missed the part where Trump mentioned aquarium chemicals

[brandon272]

You need a source to acknowledge that a President's words have impact and that speaking ignorantly and off the cuff on medical topics can lead to misunderstanding and dangerous decision making by the general public?

There's a reason why Reckitt Benckiser Group quickly issued a statement after Trump's claims, imploring people not to consume "through injection, ingestion or any other route" any of their products.

https://www.rb.com/media/news/2020/april/improper-use-of-dis...

[austingulati]

Yeah, and, in my opinion, the reason why Reckitt Benckiser Group quickly issued a statement after Trump's claims is as much the media as Trump himself. The media had an opportunity to educate people on "proprietary methods of administering intermittent ultraviolet (UV) A light via a novel endotracheal medical device" to which Trump is referring and instead ran stories about Lysol. Would we even be talking about Lysol if they had led with Healight? I won't claim to know the answer to this question because I don't but it is worth considering that the answer is "no".

Edit: just to combat the obvious response, would we even be talking about Lysol if Trump had not made those comments? Obviously, no. Two wrongs don't make a right

[brandon272]

Having watched the unedited press conference, there's zero evidence that he was talking about the Healight. If he were, they have had nearly 24 hours to clarify that he was referring to that. It's not the media's role to search out and bolster rational explanations for the President's seemingly irrational claims.

The Healight also offers no explanation for his "injecting disinfectant" claims, which were separate from the UV light claims. The term "disinfectant" among the public is most commonly used to indicate household disinfectant chemicals. So when the President muses about "injecting disinfectant", why would it be the media's role to then go and hunt for explanations that actually make sense from a medical perspective?

[austingulati]

I would say that there is "little evidence" that he was talking about Healight because his sentences are barely coherent but it does appear to be that he is referring to "injecting" UV light to "disinfect" the lungs which is what Healight is doing when you get past the exact words that I quoted.

Yes, I believe it is the media's responsibility to be more intelligent than the President in this case, which honestly shouldn't be very hard. Time and time again they are lowering themselves to Trump's level presumably to soak up that sweet sweet ad revenue

[brandon272]

You acknowledge that the President speaks in "barely coherent" sentences. And that he's not very intelligent.

That's the real problem, here. That's the real story.

If we view the media's role as nothing more than taking Trump's drivel and turning it into teachable moments or trying to find a positive spin on it, not only does it basically position the media as a PR arm of whomever the current administration is, by doing so it fails in its duty to inform the public about what is actually going on in the White House, and what the President is actually saying.

A key role of the fourth estate is to hold the President to account. That is incompatible with your view that they need to be a booster of the President in the name of "intelligence" or elevation of the dialogue.

Edit: I will also add that I see now that Trump is claiming that his talk yesterday of UV light and injecting disinfectants was "sarcasm".

[Alex3917]

From the HN guidelines:

"Please respond to the strongest plausible interpretation of what someone says, not a weaker one that's easier to criticize. Assume good faith."

[notahacker]

The statement we are supposed to find the strongest plausible interpretation of is this one

So, supposing we hit the body with a tremendous - whether it's ultraviolet or just very powerful light and I think you said that hasn't been checked but you're going to test it. And then I said, supposing you brought the light inside of the body, which you can do either through the skin or in some other way. And I think you said you're going to test that too. Sounds interesting. And then I see the disinfectant where it knocks it out in a minute. One minute. And is there a way we can do something like that, by injection inside or almost a cleaning? Because you see it gets in the lungs and it does a tremendous number on the lungs, so it'd be interesting to check that'

I don't think anybody can plausibly claim this incoherent stream of verbiage is an attempt to raise ultraviolet irradiation of blood as a possibility, particularly not in the context of a discussion which instead focused on how sunlight weakens the virus and isopryl alcohol kills it within one minute. And especially not now the person who made that statement has walked it back and said it was 'sarcastic'

HN guidelines don't require HNers to abandon their critical faculties.