| Mistake or not and sarcasm or not, it's clear what people interpreted his statements as meaning. His words prompted medical officials and Lysol to release statements about not drinking disinfectants and state agencies are reporting people calling in about using it as a potential treatment for Covid-19 [1-3]. Trump has also now back-stepped and says it was a "Prank on Reporters just to see what would happen" [4]. I've also got to admit (at the risk of getting caught up in all of these political posts) that I find it strange that the parent article is on the front page. When I read the title (note: I didn't know about the Trump press conference at the time and had to look it up after seeing the comments in this thread) I actual thought to myself: "that sounds like a quack cure, you can't disinfect blood". Interestingly there does seem to be some effectiveness to the therapy, although for different reasons than disinfection. Now that I know the political connection, however, what is upsetting to me is that the reason this post appears to be on the front page isn't because of some genuine evidence based interest in this therapy option, but instead to cover for the president's strange assertions about sterilizing blood. This includes quotes such as using "tremendous ultraviolet" or "just very powerful light" inside the body to kill the virus. It's the selective focus on the this one section of a speech that verbatim included advocacy for taking disinfectants internally (again, regardless of intention that's how people read it). Research doesn't mean pulling out the one article that supports what you want to believe. It means putting in the time and effort to understand the ensemble of views on a subject and it's pretty clear that this UV therapy, although interesting, is some far out on left field technique. Even though it has some some efficacy, just as stuff like acupuncture and chiropractic therapy is evidence based, it's use for something like Covid-19 seems questionable. [1] https://www.bbc.com/news/world-us-canada-52407177 [2] https://www.bbc.com/news/amp/world-us-canada-52411706 [3] https://thehill.com/changing-america/well-being/prevention-c... [4] https://nymag.com/intelligencer/2020/04/trump-my-idea-to-inj... |
[1] https://health.wusf.usf.edu/post/despite-skeptics-alternativ...