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Sophistication is No Hindrance When it Comes to Worrying About the Causes of Deadly Disease
I saw the recent press briefing on television and, no matter how you parse his words, President Trump DID NOT recommend injecting disinfectants, such as bleach, into the body to fight the coronavirus.
He simply asked a question.
This is what actually happened: He turned to someone off camera, presumably his science advisors, and said, as recorded by the Washington Post: “I see the disinfectant that 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? Because you see it gets inside the lungs and it does a tremendous number on the lungs, so it would be interesting to check that.”
To be honest, I don’t know what he meant. Let’s be fair, though, and say that, caught up in the urgency of the race all around the world to find a vaccine for the virus, and in the shadow of a potential “second wave,” perhaps he was only wondering out loud if a vaccine could be speedily developed that could clean the lungs “like” a disinfectant.”
It is to be expected that you will find differing opinions regarding medical issues we don’t understand, even among experts.
I remember attending Marine Corps field medical school, before Vietnam, out in the bush in the company of dozens of medical doctors, sitting around the campfire at night, and listening to them argue how they would treat hypothetical cases.
I’m overstating here, but for the same diagnosis, some would amputate, and some would just give an aspirin.
After listening to them argue for several weeks, I decided that medicine was an inexact science, and to always seek a second opinion.
Maybe that’s why they call what doctors do the “practice” of medicine.
In any event, if you look back through history you find many examples of “unorthodox” ideas regarding both the cause and the cure of pandemic diseases.