After President Donald Trump floated ingesting highly toxic disinfectant as a treatment for the coronavirus, Kansas health authorities say a man drank cleaning product over the weekend.
Lee Norman, the state health officer, said the head of the Kansas Poison Control Center reported a more than 40 percent increase in cleaning chemical cases.
“Including a fellow over the weekend who drank a product because of the advice he’d received,” Norman said during a news conference Monday.
Experts say that ingesting disinfectants could be dangerous and even deadly. Norman says that they’re working in Kansas to get the word out.
“We’re doing what we can to counter-message against that kind of remedy,” he said.
Trump walked back his comments recently, saying that he meant them sarcastically as a way to test reporters. When he was later asked if he felt any responsibility for the increase in disinfectant cases after his comments, he said that he didn’t.
“No, I don’t. No, I can’t imagine. I can’t imagine that.”
-DJT