Detergent!
Yesterday, an unusually high number of New Yorkers contacted city health authorities over fears that they had ingested bleach or other household cleaners. The Poison Control Center, under the aegis of NY City’s Health Department, handled a total of 30 calls regarding possible exposure to disinfectants between 9 p.m. on Thursday and 3 p.m. on Friday, said a spokesperson.
This flurry of calls came in the eighteen hours that followed President Trump’s comments on injecting/ingesting such products for curing coronavirus.
Trump:
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 [the virus] gets in the lungs and it does a tremendous number on the lungs so it’d be interesting to check that out. It sounds interesting to me.”
Apparently, some people agreed. Nine of the thirty cases were about exposure to Lysol; ten about bleach; and eleven about household cleansers in general.
According to data obtained by The NY Daily News, the Poison Control Center only handled 13 similar cases in the same 18-hour period last year.
Thankfully, none of the people who reached out died or required hospitalization.
Trump, who later claimed he was being “sarcastic,” wasn’t the first to make such a suggestion.
The satirical newspaper The Onion ran a story in March featuring a fictional grocery shopper, Troy Mitchell, in Wyoming stocking up on $2,513.67 worth of bleach, ammonia, and Drano in case the President suddenly suggested human consumption of such things could be the panacea for coronavirus infections.
I got toilet bowl cleaner, carpet cleaner, Swiffer WetJet refills—you name it—just so me and my family will be ready if the president announces one of these things can treat Chinese virus. You never know what might work in a pinch!”
He died, according to The Onion.
At press time, neighbors confirmed Mitchell had been found unresponsive on the floor of his bathroom with several empty aerosol cans of Rust-Oleum wax-and-tar-removing solvent by his head.”
Theologically, this is all wrong!
Jesus said:
Nothing is outside of a person which is able to defile him coming into him,
but the things which come out from the man are the things that defile the person. …
Don’t you understand that everything from outside going into the person is not able to defile him
because it does not go into his heart, but into his belly, and into the latrine it goes out …? …
The things which come out from people, that defiles the person.
For from inside, from the heart of people, come out evil ideas, sexual immoralities, thefts,
murders, adulteries, greed, evil deeds, deceit, debauchery, envy, slander, arrogance, foolishness.
All these evil things come out from inside and defile the person.”
Mark 7:15, 18–23
This, after excoriating the Pharisees three times for abandoning Scripture, in favor of manmade laws, “tradition.”
“Neglecting the commandment of God, you hold the tradition of men.”
“You reject the commandment of God, in order to establish your tradition.”
“You are annulling the word of God with your tradition which you passed down.”
Mark 7:8, 9, 13
It is not what goes into the body that renders one unacceptable to God, but what comes out from the heart— inward purity and allegiance to God’s standard.
Even the manufacturer of Lysol, Reckitt Benckiser, agreed:
Under no circumstance should our disinfectant products be administered into the human body.”
Nope. Don’t. (Though I admire the President’s optimism.)
Abiding by the word of God is a far better cure … for a far worse disease!
SOURCES:
The NY Daily News; The Onion
Abe Kuruvilla is the Carl E. Bates Professor of Christian Preaching at The Southern Baptist Theological Seminary (Louisville, KY), and a dermatologist in private practice. His passion is to explore, explain, and exemplify preaching. 