An American man has reportedly died after taking chloroquine he found in a fish tank cleaner. His wife, who also ingested the substance, survived.
According to Banner Health, the man and his wife, both in their 60s, became sick within 30 minutes of ingesting chloroquine phosphate, and experienced immediate effects requiring hospitalisation. Chloroquine phosphate is an additive commonly used at aquariums to clean fish tanks.
Some are beginning to blame US President Donald J. Trump over the incident, after he publicly disclosed that one of the working medical solutions for COVID-19 is Hydroxychloroquine and Azithromycin during a White House press briefing and also on social media site, Twitter.
Major American news outlets including Time, Business Insider, and CNN are reporting the incident as if the man took the appropriate drugs as described by President Trump, when in fact they only ingested fish tank cleaner that has as part of the ingredients Chloroquine, although that would be like eating rat poison because one of the ingredients was sodium. Sodium also being found in salt.
There seem to be efforts from mainstream media outlets to discredit a well-documented cure for coronavirus in order to keep the public hopeless about the race to a cure, even as New York Governor Andrew Cuomo is rolling out treatment involving medically-prescribed Chloroquine to thousands of New Yorkers starting today.
“I’ve spoken with a number of health officials and there is a good basis to believe that they could work.
“The president is optimistic about these drugs, and we are all optimistic that it could work,” Cuomo said in a Sunday address.
Some Americans are also not buying the anti-Trump narrative, urging people to not take shortcuts in their bid to prevent or treat coronavirus using chloroquine.
Taking to Twitter, they wrote:
1. Don’t take any meds without a prescription please
2. Hydroxychloroquine isn’t chloroquine, chloroquine is less safe
3. Chemicals you use in a fish tank are not ones you should take (different quality and it’s not properly compounded
4. You don’t know dosing
— Dog is My Copilot 🧜♂️ (@marmoset2019) March 24, 2020
• Trump never said to administer medication yourself.
• This couple ingested fish tank cleaner because they saw the ingredients contained the compound chloroquine.
• This is not Trump’s fault. https://t.co/T5Bn8Hqaic
— Frank Luntz (@FrankLuntz) March 24, 2020
This is honestly a bit shocking from Heidi.
You have to read 7 tweets in a thread about a family blaming President Trump before you get to the kicker that the family ingested *parasite treatment for fish,* not the medical form of Chloroquine the President described. https://t.co/AyHlvDAG2U
— Matt Whitlock (@mattdizwhitlock) March 24, 2020
Come on ABC. These crazy people ingested fish tank cleaner because it had chloroquine in it. And yet you try to blame their stupidity on Trump…….Geez. https://t.co/k0QEFmE6hd
— Juanita Broaddrick (@atensnut) March 24, 2020
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