When the Centers of Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) released a new report about the COVID-19 pandemic resulting in more calls to poison control centers on April 20, its researchers could never guess that three shorts days later President Donald Trump would speculate on live television about injecting disinfectants as a treatmentment for the disease.
“I see the disinfectant, where it knocks it out in a minute,” Trump rambled.” 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 would be interesting to check that.”
In fact, as the CDC knew when it published the report days earlier, most disinfectants are deadly poisons.
“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),” the maker of Lysol and Dettol immediately stated.
The CDC was reporting on people who had accidentally ingested disinfectants and cleansers, not acting on the advice of an ignorant politician. Disinfectants and cleansers are more in use, of course, because of the COVID-19 pandemic, but not because they are medications. Those who are following public health guidance regarding the pandemic are more carefully cleaning and disinfecting surfaces and personal items, since the virus that causes the disease can survive for many hours on some surfaces. That also explains why frequent hand-washing is urged, along with not touching your face. The virus is easily transferred from surface to hand to face and into the body where it can start to do its damage. Regularly cleaning surfaces and hands – warm, soapy water works as well as anything to neuter the virus – breaks the chain of transmission.
However, cleansers and disinfectants pose their own health risks, unknown to the president, and a new report by the CDC shows that many people are not remaining properly mindful of those risks.
A team of researchers led by Arthur Chang of the CDC reviewed chemical exposures reported to the National Poison Data System for the months that the U.S. has been dealing with the COVID-19 pandemic in comparison to that same time frame in the two previous years. And they found a significant increase in reports of chemical exposures to cleansers and disinfectants.
From January to March 2020, poison centers received 45,550 exposure calls related to cleaners (28,158) and disinfectants (17,392), representing an overall increase of 20.4% over the same time span in 2019 (37,822 calls) and a 16.4% increase from 2018 (39,122 calls).
Of those 45,550 exposure calls made during the months of the COVID-19 pandemic, the researchers summarized two incidents. Though in both cases the affected individual returned home without reported lasting damage, they reveal the kinds of mistakes people are making with these products, resulting in trips to overburdened hospitals where they risked infection.
In one incident, a woman heard on the news to clean all recently purchased groceries before consuming them. She filled a sink with a mixture of 10% bleach solution, vinegar, and hot water and soaked her produce. After noticing a noxious smell, she developed difficulty breathing, coughing, and wheezing, and called 911. An ambulance took her to a hospital where she improved with oxygen and bronchodilators and was discharged after a few hours of observation.
In the other incident, a preschool-aged child spent 48 hours in a pediatric intensive care unit after ingesting an unknown amount of ethanol-based hand sanitizer from a 64-ounce bottle that she found open on the kitchen table. Her blood alcohol level was recorded at 0.27%, more than three times the 0.08% blood alcohol content that is the legal limit to drive in Missouri and most states.
“Associated with increased use of cleaners and disinfectants is the possibility of improper use, such as using more than directed on the label, mixing multiple chemical products together, not wearing protective gear, and applying in poorly ventilated areas,” the researchers reported.
“To reduce improper use and prevent unnecessary chemical exposures, users should always read and follow directions on the label, only use water at room temperature for dilution (unless stated otherwise on the label), avoid mixing chemical products, wear eye and skin protection, ensure adequate ventilation, and store chemicals out of the reach of children.”
The corresponding author for the CDC report “Cleaning and Disinfectant Chemical Exposures and Temporal Associations with COVID-19 — National Poison Data System, United States, January 1, 2020– March 31, 2020” is Arthur Chang, ctn7@cdc.gov.
