7 ms·

Not to start a political off topic war, but the then sitting president of the US was heavily mocked for suggesting treatment options with UV be evaluated. [1]

Not to start a political off topic war, but the then sitting president of the US was heavily mocked for suggesting treatment options with UV be evaluated. [1] [1] https://www.nytimes.com/2020/04/24/health/sunlight-coronavirus-trump.amp.html https://www.nytimes.com/2020/04/24/health/sunlight-coronavir...

iammisc 5y ago
People make fun of him, and I'm not going to go into whether it was responsible to phrase it the way he did or not, but in my mind the most likely explanation as to why he said it was that some scientists explained it to him and he just regurgitated what he heard without putting it into context (I don't imagine Trump is particularly technically inclined).
luxuryballs 5y ago
Yep and that’s why it was always apt to call them fake news. Just like when they said there was no widespread election fraud or that the elections were the most secure ever despite them not taking the time to actually check to see if this was true. It’s pathetic, even when they post a correction later, they know exactly what they are doing when they play it loose with reporting it is always clearly with a greater purpose to deceive for what they deem a better message. Even if they essentially seem to claim “oh we had to lie a bit because it was safer”, that should not be acceptable at all. For example lambasting people for taking Ivermectin by claiming it was horse dewormer, maybe they did this to “protect” a tiny portion of the population who may have otherwise taken horse medicine incorrectly, that shouldn’t be good enough, truth is always going to be the most healthy option overall. The boy who cried wolf could have told you all this had he not been devoured.
adflux 5y ago
Yep, same thing with calling ivermectin horse medicine instead of representing it accurately, a nobel prize winning medicine of which billions of doses have been safely administred to humans. Good journalism is hard to find nowadays. But journalism infested with politics is worse, and so widespread nowadays.
- ceejayoz 5y ago
  > a nobel prize winning medicine For treating parasites. Give a heart transplant to a kid with a cold and you'll get yelled at, too, despite it being a wonderful procedure to have in our medical quiver.
  - adflux 5y ago
    It's the intentional misrepresentation of facts which I am referring to. I have no problems with journalists writing science backed articles about using ivermectin for treating covid19. I have problems with journalists intentionally calling it horse dewormer as if that is only what it is. So your analogy really doesn't make sense here.
    - ceejayoz 5y ago
      I'm noting that calling it "Nobel Prize winning medicine" is just as technically accurate and potentially misleading as calling it "horse dewormer". You're doing the same thing you're complaining about.
      - adflux 5y ago
        From the intro on Wikipedia: Ivermectin was discovered in 1975 and came into medical use in 1981;[12][13] William Campbell and Satoshi Ōmura won the 2015 Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine for its discovery and applications. When you are referring to this in regards to covid19, calling it horse dewormer is intentionally mispresenting an argument in an attempt to discount it.
        ceejayoz 5y ago
        > When you are referring to this in regards to covid19, calling it horse dewormer is intentionally mispresenting an argument in an attempt to discount it. "Nobel Prize winning medication" is similarly a misrepresentation in the context of COVID. It's both a Nobel Prize winning medicine, and horse dewormer. It's also a human antiparisitic. None of these individually describe it completely, but there's one thing it's not currently - a proven COVID treatment.
handol 5y ago
The quote (referring to a presentation on surface disinfectant studies): > I asked Bill a question that probably some of you are thinking of, if you're totally into that world, which I find to be very interesting. So, supposing we hit the body with a tremendous—whether it's ultraviolet or just very powerful light—and I think you said that that hasn't been checked, but you're going to test it. And then I said, supposing you brought the light inside the body, which you can do either through the skin or in some other way, and I think you said you're going to test that too. It sounds interesting… And then I see the disinfectant, where it 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 in the lungs and it does a tremendous number on the lungs. So it would be interesting to check that. So, that, you're going to have to use medical doctors with. But it sounds—it sounds interesting to me.
happytoexplain 5y ago
That's charitable. He was mocked (unjustly, as all presidents are), but criticized (justly) for taking simple observations (UV kills the virus, disinfectant kills the virus) and extrapolating medically in a way that the president should not do in a public statement, and that's even regardless of the sloppiness of his descriptions.
- iammisc 5y ago
  Trump was not just mocked unjustly... words were inserted into his statement by major, reputable news sources, such as the New York Times, which was one of the first to begin using the word 'bleach' (which is actually dangerous to inject) instead of the stated word 'disinfectant' (which is non-specific enough to be less dangerous). https://www.nytimes.com/2020/04/26/opinion/coronavirus-bleach-trump-autism.html https://www.nytimes.com/2020/04/26/opinion/coronavirus-bleac... IMO, this is incredibly irresponsible. Antibiotics are a disinfectant, which are completely safe to inject. Other anti-virals are also safe to inject. The Times took the word 'disinfectant', which while perhaps used incorrectly, does not immediately suggest doing any actual dangerous action, and, instead of restricting their criticism to the fact that no known COVID injectable disinfectant exists, they linked the word to actually dangerous 'cures'. While doing so, they popularized an otherwise fringe movement, and made baseless claims connecting this movement to Trump's motivations behind saying the word (the fact that such a group lobbied Trump is not in any way evidence that this is why he used that word... lots of groups lobby presidents all the time). Joe Biden and Obama are and were surely mocked as well, but not by the likes of the New York Times, WaPo, and other major news outlets. I mean... is the New York Times running articles on Brandon? I don't think so.
  - ceejayoz 5y ago
    They'd just been discussing bleach and isopropyl alcohol specifically. There's a pic of the slide, which states "COMMONLY AVAILABLE DISINFECTANTS (Bleach & Isopropyl Alcohol) work to kill the virus:: https://ichef.bbci.co.uk/news/976/cpsprodpb/AA47/production/_111919534_trumpgetty2.jpg https://ichef.bbci.co.uk/news/976/cpsprodpb/AA47/production/... Antibiotics are not disinfectants. Both kill bacteria, but that doesn't make them the same thing.
nradov 5y ago
At the time of that statement, Cedars-Sinai researchers were actively evaluating use of UV lights in the lungs for treating COVID-19 and other infectious diseases. https://www.cedars-sinai.org/newsroom/cedars-sinai-statement-on-uv-a--technology/ https://www.cedars-sinai.org/newsroom/cedars-sinai-statement... Preliminary research results look promising but it will probably take several more years for such devices to be available for routine patient care. https://www.medrxiv.org/content/10.1101/2021.03.05.21252997v1 https://www.medrxiv.org/content/10.1101/2021.03.05.21252997v...
angelzen 5y ago
The root of the criticism is that a sitting president wields a lot or authority and is not supposed to tout experimental treatments. The actual media spectacle we've got though...
- hammock 5y ago
  >The root of the criticism is that a sitting president wields a lot or authority and is not supposed to tout experimental treatments. I hope the irony of this is not lost on readers.
  - uncoder0 5y ago
    "Boosters for all Americans" -Sitting President "Boosters only for people at high risk and/or over 65" -FDA a couple days later
    - angelzen 5y ago
      This is interesting, and not in a good way. I'm not sure FDA as we know it can survive a two-track regime, where some medicine is fast tracked and/or cleared of legal liability. Sooner or later most new medicine will end up on the fast track, it's in the logic of large bureaucratic bodies. https://arstechnica.com/science/2021/09/top-fda-regulators-blast-us-booster-plan-after-announcing-resignations https://arstechnica.com/science/2021/09/top-fda-regulators-b...
      - nradov 5y ago
        Vaccines have had special liability protection since 1986. That's nothing new. https://www.hrsa.gov/vaccine-compensation/about/index.html https://www.hrsa.gov/vaccine-compensation/about/index.html
throwawaymedia 5y ago
When I worked at a news company as a software engineer, at some point in time I was given editorial permissions. On that day I was told not to write anything negative about Dems. Ad revenue.

iammisc 5y ago

People make fun of him, and I'm not going to go into whether it was responsible to phrase it the way he did or not, but in my mind the most likely explanation as to why he said it was that some scientists explained it to him and he just regurgitated what he heard without putting it into context (I don't imagine Trump is particularly technically inclined).

luxuryballs 5y ago

Yep and that’s why it was always apt to call them fake news. Just like when they said there was no widespread election fraud or that the elections were the most secure ever despite them not taking the time to actually check to see if this was true. It’s pathetic, even when they post a correction later, they know exactly what they are doing when they play it loose with reporting it is always clearly with a greater purpose to deceive for what they deem a better message. Even if they essentially seem to claim “oh we had to lie a bit because it was safer”, that should not be acceptable at all. For example lambasting people for taking Ivermectin by claiming it was horse dewormer, maybe they did this to “protect” a tiny portion of the population who may have otherwise taken horse medicine incorrectly, that shouldn’t be good enough, truth is always going to be the most healthy option overall. The boy who cried wolf could have told you all this had he not been devoured.

adflux 5y ago

Yep, same thing with calling ivermectin horse medicine instead of representing it accurately, a nobel prize winning medicine of which billions of doses have been safely administred to humans. Good journalism is hard to find nowadays. But journalism infested with politics is worse, and so widespread nowadays.

ceejayoz 5y ago
> a nobel prize winning medicine For treating parasites. Give a heart transplant to a kid with a cold and you'll get yelled at, too, despite it being a wonderful procedure to have in our medical quiver.
- adflux 5y ago
  It's the intentional misrepresentation of facts which I am referring to. I have no problems with journalists writing science backed articles about using ivermectin for treating covid19. I have problems with journalists intentionally calling it horse dewormer as if that is only what it is. So your analogy really doesn't make sense here.
  - ceejayoz 5y ago
    I'm noting that calling it "Nobel Prize winning medicine" is just as technically accurate and potentially misleading as calling it "horse dewormer". You're doing the same thing you're complaining about.
    - adflux 5y ago
      From the intro on Wikipedia: Ivermectin was discovered in 1975 and came into medical use in 1981;[12][13] William Campbell and Satoshi Ōmura won the 2015 Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine for its discovery and applications. When you are referring to this in regards to covid19, calling it horse dewormer is intentionally mispresenting an argument in an attempt to discount it.
      - ceejayoz 5y ago
        > When you are referring to this in regards to covid19, calling it horse dewormer is intentionally mispresenting an argument in an attempt to discount it. "Nobel Prize winning medication" is similarly a misrepresentation in the context of COVID. It's both a Nobel Prize winning medicine, and horse dewormer. It's also a human antiparisitic. None of these individually describe it completely, but there's one thing it's not currently - a proven COVID treatment.

handol 5y ago

The quote (referring to a presentation on surface disinfectant studies): > I asked Bill a question that probably some of you are thinking of, if you're totally into that world, which I find to be very interesting. So, supposing we hit the body with a tremendous—whether it's ultraviolet or just very powerful light—and I think you said that that hasn't been checked, but you're going to test it. And then I said, supposing you brought the light inside the body, which you can do either through the skin or in some other way, and I think you said you're going to test that too. It sounds interesting… And then I see the disinfectant, where it 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 in the lungs and it does a tremendous number on the lungs. So it would be interesting to check that. So, that, you're going to have to use medical doctors with. But it sounds—it sounds interesting to me.

happytoexplain 5y ago

That's charitable. He was mocked (unjustly, as all presidents are), but criticized (justly) for taking simple observations (UV kills the virus, disinfectant kills the virus) and extrapolating medically in a way that the president should not do in a public statement, and that's even regardless of the sloppiness of his descriptions.

iammisc 5y ago
Trump was not just mocked unjustly... words were inserted into his statement by major, reputable news sources, such as the New York Times, which was one of the first to begin using the word 'bleach' (which is actually dangerous to inject) instead of the stated word 'disinfectant' (which is non-specific enough to be less dangerous). https://www.nytimes.com/2020/04/26/opinion/coronavirus-bleach-trump-autism.html https://www.nytimes.com/2020/04/26/opinion/coronavirus-bleac... IMO, this is incredibly irresponsible. Antibiotics are a disinfectant, which are completely safe to inject. Other anti-virals are also safe to inject. The Times took the word 'disinfectant', which while perhaps used incorrectly, does not immediately suggest doing any actual dangerous action, and, instead of restricting their criticism to the fact that no known COVID injectable disinfectant exists, they linked the word to actually dangerous 'cures'. While doing so, they popularized an otherwise fringe movement, and made baseless claims connecting this movement to Trump's motivations behind saying the word (the fact that such a group lobbied Trump is not in any way evidence that this is why he used that word... lots of groups lobby presidents all the time). Joe Biden and Obama are and were surely mocked as well, but not by the likes of the New York Times, WaPo, and other major news outlets. I mean... is the New York Times running articles on Brandon? I don't think so.
- ceejayoz 5y ago
  They'd just been discussing bleach and isopropyl alcohol specifically. There's a pic of the slide, which states "COMMONLY AVAILABLE DISINFECTANTS (Bleach & Isopropyl Alcohol) work to kill the virus:: https://ichef.bbci.co.uk/news/976/cpsprodpb/AA47/production/_111919534_trumpgetty2.jpg https://ichef.bbci.co.uk/news/976/cpsprodpb/AA47/production/... Antibiotics are not disinfectants. Both kill bacteria, but that doesn't make them the same thing.

nradov 5y ago

At the time of that statement, Cedars-Sinai researchers were actively evaluating use of UV lights in the lungs for treating COVID-19 and other infectious diseases. https://www.cedars-sinai.org/newsroom/cedars-sinai-statement-on-uv-a--technology/ https://www.cedars-sinai.org/newsroom/cedars-sinai-statement... Preliminary research results look promising but it will probably take several more years for such devices to be available for routine patient care. https://www.medrxiv.org/content/10.1101/2021.03.05.21252997v1 https://www.medrxiv.org/content/10.1101/2021.03.05.21252997v...

angelzen 5y ago

The root of the criticism is that a sitting president wields a lot or authority and is not supposed to tout experimental treatments. The actual media spectacle we've got though...

hammock 5y ago
>The root of the criticism is that a sitting president wields a lot or authority and is not supposed to tout experimental treatments. I hope the irony of this is not lost on readers.
- uncoder0 5y ago
  "Boosters for all Americans" -Sitting President "Boosters only for people at high risk and/or over 65" -FDA a couple days later
  - angelzen 5y ago
    This is interesting, and not in a good way. I'm not sure FDA as we know it can survive a two-track regime, where some medicine is fast tracked and/or cleared of legal liability. Sooner or later most new medicine will end up on the fast track, it's in the logic of large bureaucratic bodies. https://arstechnica.com/science/2021/09/top-fda-regulators-blast-us-booster-plan-after-announcing-resignations https://arstechnica.com/science/2021/09/top-fda-regulators-b...
    - nradov 5y ago
      Vaccines have had special liability protection since 1986. That's nothing new. https://www.hrsa.gov/vaccine-compensation/about/index.html https://www.hrsa.gov/vaccine-compensation/about/index.html

throwawaymedia 5y ago

When I worked at a news company as a software engineer, at some point in time I was given editorial permissions. On that day I was told not to write anything negative about Dems. Ad revenue.