Many American news sites are reporting spikes in disinfectants exposure among poison control centres after Trump’s suggestion to inject disinfectants into your lungs.

But before you start handing out Darwin awards…

Oi, put that thumbs up down.

Or before you start angrily tweeting “dumb Trump”…

1/3 No one, not even the POTUS, should be allowed to act with impunity. At this point the only explanations for his repeated reckless suggestions are:

1) he's an idiot

2) he owns Lysol stockhttps://t.co/RQ9aEDp6Nw

— Mulcahy for Congress? (@aVoice4MA6) April 25, 2020

Just know that most of those news are misleading.

People Haven’t Started Drinking Disinfectants Because of Trump

…Yet. And the only reason I have to put “yet” is because Trump really did cause someone to ingest a fish tank cleaner and die before with his chloroquine suggestion.

Take, for instance, New York’s reported number of exposures in the 18 hours after Trump’s statements.

According to NY Daily News, the Poison Control Center, a subagency of New York city’s Health Department, reported that they handled a total of 30 cases of possible exposure to disinfectants in the 18 hours after Trump’s statements. That is, between 9 pm Thursday and 3 pm Friday.

They then compare this number to the same 18 hour period last year, which was 13. This seemed like the numbers have doubled, but this is disingenuous data reporting.

The reason is simple: there isn’t context behind those numbers. What are the typical average numbers? Why compare to the same 18 hour period instead of the average throughout last year? What are the average numbers since COVID-19 started?

If you stop to think for a while, the numbers don’t have any meaning to them.

In the state of Kentucky, there was also a spike in disinfectant related exposures.

In the article I linked itself, here are the first two sentences:

“LOUISVILLE, Ky. (WDRB) — Poison control centers around the country, including here in Kentucky, are seeing a spike in calls related to COVID-19.

‘Just in March, we saw about a 30% increase in hand sanitizer exposures and about a 50% increase in household cleaners.’ said Dr. Ashley Webb, director of the Kentucky Poison Control Center.”

Putting the sentences one after another reads like COVID-19 had caused people to drink disinfectant, but that’s not the case.

In the same article, they then wrote,

“Webb said most calls involve kids drinking cleaners or breathing in toxic fumes because parents are cleaning more often.”

Yep. The increase in disinfectant related poisoning is because people are just cleaning more because they are stuck at home. Not because of Trump. Timing of publication and the way they arranged sentences had made it seem otherwise.

In fact, related cases had been up since March, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, which is before Trump’s dumb statement.

So you’re wondering why news sites are doing this, and the reason is simple: easy advertising money. Clickbait. Dislike of orange hair.

(Like *uh hum* what we’re doing with this article.)

But just in case you think we’re defending Trump’s statements, we’re not. Trump’s statements about disinfectants are simply untrue and even Lysol and Dettol had to come out to tell people not to ingest or inject them.

We’re simply saying, don’t anyhowly spread fake news and misinformation or POFMA will catch you.