8 ms·

They didn't take the drug, they took an aquarium cleaner... http://bannerhealth.mediaroom.com/chloroquinephosphate http://bannerhealth.mediaroom.com/chloroquin

They didn't take the drug, they took an aquarium cleaner... http://bannerhealth.mediaroom.com/chloroquinephosphate http://bannerhealth.mediaroom.com/chloroquinephosphate >A man has died and his wife is under critical care after the couple, both in their 60s, ingested chloroquine phosphate, an additive commonly used at aquariums to clean fish tanks. Within thirty minutes of ingestion, the couple experienced immediate effects requiring admittance to a nearby Banner Health hospita

teddyvangogh 7y ago
---------------------------------------- BREAKING NEWS: CHLOROQUINE CURES CORONAVIRUS BUT DOES NOT CURE STUPIDITY. ---------------------------------------
- dang 7y ago
  We've banned this account for posting unsubstantive and/or flamebait comments to HN. Please don't create accounts to do that with. https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html
mirimir 7y ago
There's an important detail missing: the dose. I gather that the therapeutic dose is on the order of 500 mg/day. So did they eat 10x that, 100x that, or what?
- JulianMorrison 7y ago
  Given it's a bulk cleaning product, they'd need some damn finely calibrated scales to measure out anything more precise than "a pinch". Which clearly isn't good when 3x the clinical dose will land you in hospital.
  - mirimir 7y ago
    I just bought an electronic scale with 10 mg accuracy for $30, so hey.
6gvONxR4sf7o 7y ago
Apparently chloroquine phosphate is the right drug and it's a synonym for chloroquine the drug. https://www.webmd.com/drugs/2/drug-8633/chloroquine-oral/details https://www.webmd.com/drugs/2/drug-8633/chloroquine-oral/det... Also all the wikipedia references are about chloroquine phosphate https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chloroquine#References https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chloroquine#References Looks like they did take the right drug, but OD'd or something.
- belorn 7y ago
  chloroquine phosphate might be one of many compounds of a cleaning product for aquariums. One other very common part of cleaning products, and extremely toxic, is chlorine. Was this specific cleaning product intended to be used when the fish are still in the tank? Its things like this which is the reason why Sweden has almost banned every cleaning product that has the word alcohol as one of its ingredient, and those that still have it usually must have something that cause vomiting if ingested. People poison themselves (which is I think the more technical correct term than overdosing), and if people will look at something like a cleaning product and think "I will drink this" then there is not much options available.
  - dmix 7y ago
    > if people will look at something like a cleaning product and think "I will drink this" then there is not much options available. Last year I watched as a homeless man squirted hand sanitizer into a cup then drink it. Before a woman yelled at him and started calling 911. He disappeared pretty quickly after that, so not sure what ever happened to him. Fun fact: The hand sanitizer stand he used was one of the ones installed around public areas in Toronto after the last SARS outbreak.
    - belorn 7y ago
      Hand sanitizer with alcohol is one such product that does not exist in Swedish stores. There is gels and other similar products that evaporate but they do not actually include any alcohol. I remember many years ago that there was a campaign to inform the public of this fact as people still continued for a while to ingest those products under the idea that they still had alcohol in them. Many products also had for a while big lables that said "No alcohol". As far as I know the regulation has been quite a success.
deleted 7y ago
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marzell 7y ago
Saying that someone took X when referring to a chemical, and X is just a scary way of describing a use for that chemical, is really just FUD tactics. You know what else you could say that is just as meaningful? So-and-so died because they took an 'aquarium cleaner'... where the reference is to Water, which is also used when cleaning aquariums. Everything is chemicals.
- hnburnsy 7y ago
  See below, likely other ingredients were involved and like others mention the difficulty of selecting the right dosing from an aquarium product makes it very pertinent to point out the source of what they took. Not FUD, just trying to add more context.
  - catalogia 7y ago
    Your quoted source "A man has died and his wife is under critical care after the couple, both in their 60s, ingested chloroquine phosphate, an additive commonly used at aquariums to clean fish tanks." doesn't actually say these particular people used a fish tank product as their source of chloroquine phosphate. This comment is harshly worded but explains the subtly well: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=22670152 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=22670152
deleted 7y ago
[deleted]

teddyvangogh 7y ago

---------------------------------------- BREAKING NEWS: CHLOROQUINE CURES CORONAVIRUS BUT DOES NOT CURE STUPIDITY. ---------------------------------------

dang 7y ago
We've banned this account for posting unsubstantive and/or flamebait comments to HN. Please don't create accounts to do that with. https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html

mirimir 7y ago

There's an important detail missing: the dose. I gather that the therapeutic dose is on the order of 500 mg/day. So did they eat 10x that, 100x that, or what?

JulianMorrison 7y ago
Given it's a bulk cleaning product, they'd need some damn finely calibrated scales to measure out anything more precise than "a pinch". Which clearly isn't good when 3x the clinical dose will land you in hospital.
- mirimir 7y ago
  I just bought an electronic scale with 10 mg accuracy for $30, so hey.

6gvONxR4sf7o 7y ago

Apparently chloroquine phosphate is the right drug and it's a synonym for chloroquine the drug. https://www.webmd.com/drugs/2/drug-8633/chloroquine-oral/details https://www.webmd.com/drugs/2/drug-8633/chloroquine-oral/det... Also all the wikipedia references are about chloroquine phosphate https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chloroquine#References https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chloroquine#References Looks like they did take the right drug, but OD'd or something.

belorn 7y ago
chloroquine phosphate might be one of many compounds of a cleaning product for aquariums. One other very common part of cleaning products, and extremely toxic, is chlorine. Was this specific cleaning product intended to be used when the fish are still in the tank? Its things like this which is the reason why Sweden has almost banned every cleaning product that has the word alcohol as one of its ingredient, and those that still have it usually must have something that cause vomiting if ingested. People poison themselves (which is I think the more technical correct term than overdosing), and if people will look at something like a cleaning product and think "I will drink this" then there is not much options available.
- dmix 7y ago
  > if people will look at something like a cleaning product and think "I will drink this" then there is not much options available. Last year I watched as a homeless man squirted hand sanitizer into a cup then drink it. Before a woman yelled at him and started calling 911. He disappeared pretty quickly after that, so not sure what ever happened to him. Fun fact: The hand sanitizer stand he used was one of the ones installed around public areas in Toronto after the last SARS outbreak.
  - belorn 7y ago
    Hand sanitizer with alcohol is one such product that does not exist in Swedish stores. There is gels and other similar products that evaporate but they do not actually include any alcohol. I remember many years ago that there was a campaign to inform the public of this fact as people still continued for a while to ingest those products under the idea that they still had alcohol in them. Many products also had for a while big lables that said "No alcohol". As far as I know the regulation has been quite a success.

deleted 7y ago

[deleted]

marzell 7y ago

Saying that someone took X when referring to a chemical, and X is just a scary way of describing a use for that chemical, is really just FUD tactics. You know what else you could say that is just as meaningful? So-and-so died because they took an 'aquarium cleaner'... where the reference is to Water, which is also used when cleaning aquariums. Everything is chemicals.

hnburnsy 7y ago
See below, likely other ingredients were involved and like others mention the difficulty of selecting the right dosing from an aquarium product makes it very pertinent to point out the source of what they took. Not FUD, just trying to add more context.
- catalogia 7y ago
  Your quoted source "A man has died and his wife is under critical care after the couple, both in their 60s, ingested chloroquine phosphate, an additive commonly used at aquariums to clean fish tanks." doesn't actually say these particular people used a fish tank product as their source of chloroquine phosphate. This comment is harshly worded but explains the subtly well: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=22670152 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=22670152

deleted 7y ago

[deleted]