The company that makes Lysol and Dettol is urging customers not to consume its cleaning products.
Reckitt Benckiser, a British company, warned Friday that human consumption of disinfectant products is dangerous. It issued the statement following "recent speculation and social media activity."
"As a global leader in health and hygiene products, 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 company said in a statement.
RB said products should only be “used as intended and in line with usage guidelines.”
"We have a responsibility in providing consumers with access to accurate, up-to-date information as advised by leading public health experts," the company said.
The statement followed remarks from President Trump on Thursday on the use of disinfectants.
“And then I see the disinfectant where it knocks it out in one minute. Is there a way we can do something like that by injection inside or almost a cleaning because you see it gets on the lungs, so it would be interesting to check that. You’re going to have to use medical doctors, but it sounds interesting to me,” he added.
News4Jax spoke to Dr. Jay Schauben of UF Health in Jacksonville.
“I am going to make a plea for the public. Please do not inject or inject any cleaning products into your body. They are not meant for that,” Schauben said.
Family physician Dr. Harold Laski told News4Jax that almost every patient he saw on Friday has asked about disinfectants.
“I would tell them do not even consider that," Laski said. “They are not meant to be put inside the body and they will cause a significant toxic reaction is you do so.”
Ingesting or injecting disinfectants is dangerous, according to a medical expert employed by the Trump administration. Food and Drug Administration chief Dr. Stephen Hahn said, “I certainly wouldn’t recommend the internal ingestion of a disinfectant.”
The US Food and Drug Administration regularly warns the public against drinking bleach, or even inhaling fumes from bleach. It's also irritating to skin.
On Monday, the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention said calls about poisonings with cleaners and disinfectants had increased more than 20% in the first three months of 2020 -- as coronavirus cleaning increased -- than from the same period a year earlier. Among cleaners, bleaches accounted for the largest percentage increase in calls from 2019 to 2020.
The CDC recommends using soap and water or bleach to kill the virus. Rubbing alcohol that's at least 70% alcohol will also kill it on surfaces; 60% for your hands.
Bleach should not be injected or ingested
Studies of the virus have shown that bleach kills coronavirus on surfaces in about five minutes, and isopropyl alcohol destroys it on surfaces even faster, Bill Bryan, a senior official at the US Department of Homeland Security, told reporters Thursday.
Bryan, who is not a scientist, said a US Army biological lab outside Washington DC had been conducting tests on the virus.
Chlorine bleach is toxic. It can and does kill people who drink it. The US Food and Drug Administration regularly warns the public against drinking bleach, or even inhaling fumes from bleach. It's also irritating to skin.
The US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention last week said calls about poisonings with cleaners and disinfectants had increased more than 20% in the first three months of 2020 -- as coronavirus cleaning increased -- than from the same period a year earlier. Among cleaners, bleaches accounted for the largest percentage increase in calls from 2019 to 2020.
The CDC recommends using soap and water or bleach to kill the virus on surfaces. Rubbing alcohol that's at least 70% alcohol will also kill it on surfaces; 60% for your hands.
Sunlight can kill the virus but isn’t a cure
Tests also have shown the virus in droplets of saliva survives best indoors and in dry conditions, Bryan said.
"The virus dies the quickest in the presence of direct sunlight under these conditions," he said. "Our most striking observation to date is the powerful effect that solar light appears to have on killing the virus, both surfaces and in the air."
Temperature and humidity also affect how long the virus survives, he said.
Bryan called the finding "another weapon in the fight that we can add to it and in the summer." But he added: "It would be irresponsible for us to say that we feel the summer will totally kill the virus. We have an opportunity, though, to get ahead with what we know now and factor that into the decision-making."
Ultraviolet light can damage skin and lead to cancer if people get enough of it.
As for how the summer might impact the virus, members of an influential National Academy of Sciences committee told the White House earlier this month that it doesn't look like the coronavirus will go away once the weather warms up.
“There is some evidence to suggest that (coronavirus) may transmit less efficiently in environments with higher ambient temperature and humidity; however, given the lack of host immunity globally, this reduction in transmission efficiency may not lead to a significant reduction in disease spread without the concomitant adoption of major public health interventions,” the panel wrote, noting that the virus continued to spread in countries experiencing warm weather.