The Environmental Protection Agency is reminding people to only use disinfectant on surfaces.
The EPA issued the update after President Donald Trump suggested it might be helpful to inject disinfectant to combat the coronavirus.
The EPA says, “Never apply the product to yourself or others. Do not ingest disinfectant products.”
William Bryan of the Department of Homeland Security said at a White House briefing on Thursday “emerging results” from new research suggest solar light has a powerful effect in killing the virus on surfaces and in the air.
But he said there was no consideration of internal use of disinfectants. Trump’s hypothesis drew a flood of comments on Twitter.
His statement during Thursday's press conference:
"So supposing we hit the body with a tremendous, whether it's ultraviolet or just very powerful light. And I think you said that hasn't been checked but you're going to test it. Then I said supposing you brought the light inside the body, which you could do, either through the skin or some other way and I think you said you were going to test that, too. Sounds interesting. Then I see the disinfectant, where it knocks it out in a minute, 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 and it does a tremendous number on the lungs. So it will be interesting to check that. That you're gonna have to use medical doctors. But it sounds interesting to me."
Meanwhile, the company that makes Lysol has also issued a statement that says "under no circumstance should our disinfectant products be administered into the human body through injection, ingestion or any other route."
It said it issued the statement after "recent speculation and social media activity."
