CHRIS Cuomo’s wife has suggested bathing in bleach to help combat the coronavirus, echoing President Trump’s advice that injecting disinfectant might help treat COVID-19 patients.
The bizarre claims were made by Cristina Cuomo, who posted them on her personal blog “The Purist”, which advocates using natural ingredients to live a more wholesome life.
Although bleach is not usually considered a natural ingredient, Cristina details a bleach-infused bath she took to nurse herself back to health after being diagnosed as COVID-19 positive.
“At the direction of my doctor, Dr. Linda Lancaster, who reminded me that this is an oxygen-depleting virus, she suggested I take a bath and add a nominal amount of bleach,” she writes.
“Yes, bleach. So, I add a small amount—1/4 to ½ cup ONLY—of Clorox to a full bath of warm water (80 gallons). Why? To combat the radiation and metals in my system and oxygenate it.
“Since I had no sense of smell and no open cuts that it might sting, I opted to do it.”
The ingredients in Clorox bleach are water, sodium hypochlorite, sodium chloride, sodium carbonate, sodium chlorate, sodium hydroxide and sodium polyacrylate.
A number of those ingredients can be dangerous to humans.
As one manufacturing company points out in an explanation of the effect of sodium hypochlorite on humans: “After swallowing sodium hypochlorite the effects are stomach ache, a burning sensation, coughing, diarrhea, a sore throat and vomiting. Sodium hypochlorite on skin or eyes causes redness and pain.”
As for sodium carbonate, it “is only slightly toxic, but large doses may be corrosive to the gastro-intestinal tract where symptoms may include severe abdominal pain, vomiting, diarrhea, collapse and death,” according to the University of Maryland.
“Excessive contact [with skin] may cause irritation with blistering and redness.”
Sodium chlorate, meanwhile, is also used as a herbicide.
And sodium hydroxide, it is “strongly irritating and corrosive”, according to the CDC.
“It can cause severe burns and permanent damage to any tissue that it comes in contact with. Sodium hydroxide can cause hydrolysis of proteins, and hence can cause burns in the eyes which may lead to permanent eye damage.”
Although sodium polyacrylate is also used in diapers, Canada’s Environment Domestic Substance List notes that users should “expect [it] to be toxic or harmful”.
Cuomo’s wife has been ridiculed for her suggestion.
Dr. Jose Luis Ocampo, a board-certified emergency medicine physician at Kaiser Permanente in, California, cautioned the public against bleach bathing.
“As a physician, I would never recommend something that was not proven efficacious and safe for patients to use or do,” Ocampo told USA TODAY. “As such, I have never recommended Clorox baths as my knowledge of its medicinal use and safety is limited.”
Reactions to Cristina’s blog post comes after Trump suggested that coronavirus patients could be injected with disinfectants – which are extremely harmful to humans – or exposed to different types of light.
Earlier in Thursday’s briefing, medical experts had presented evidence from Homeland Security that the virus weakens when exposed to sunlight and heat.
The study also showed that bleach and isopropyl alcohol killed the virus in saliva or respiratory fluids in a matter of minutes.
“Supposing we hit the body with a tremendous, whether it’s ultraviolet or just very powerful light?” he asked Department of Homeland Security official William Bryan.
“And then I said supposing you brought the light inside the body which you can do either through the skin or in some other way.
Trump continued: “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. As you can see, it gets in the lungs, and it does a tremendous number on the lungs.”
He later asked Dr. Deborah Birx, the White House Coronavirus Response Coordinator, to look into the suggestion in an awkward exchange.
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