With this question, Donald Trump set off the yuuugest firestorm ever:
"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, supposedly 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. 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. (To Bryan) And I think you said you’re going to test that, too. Sounds interesting, right?"
"And then I see the disinfectant, where it knocks it out in 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’d be interesting to check that, so that you’re going to have to use medical doctors with, but it sounds interesting to me. So, we’ll see, but the whole concept of the light, the way it kills it in one minute. That’s pretty powerful."
Pundits, journalists, comedians, actors, musicians, ordinary folks, scientists, doctors, and even some twitter trolls, pounced! How could he say such a thing? Is he nuts? Is he a complete moron? Did he just advise Americans to inject Clorox into their veins? Could he possibly be more dangerous? IMBLEACH!
Typical headlines looked like this:
'Jaw-Dropping’: Trump Slammed for Touting Dangerous New Virus Treatments After Favored Drug Is Discredited
Forget the matter of whether or not those reactions are even remotely justified by the question asked - could Trump have actually been onto something?
Turns out the answer is... YES!
- Since the 1940s doctors have practiced Ultraviolet Blood Irradiation (UBI) to treat pathogens and diseases in the blood. Apparently it works. Here's a paper I found at NIH.GOV that calls it "The Forgotten Cure" Note that today this is done with fiber optics bringing UV into the blood stream.
- One of the things I keep hearing from doctors is that the lung pathology of COVID-19 looks a lot like HAPE (High Altitude Pulmonary Edema). Turns out, alcohol vaporization in the lungs has been known for decades to be effective at treating pulmonary edema. Here's a paper from the 1950s titled, "Alcohol Vapor by Inhalation in the Treatment of Acute Pulmonary Edema" . Alcohol was the disinfectant Trump referenced in his question, because he had just been told it was particularly effective at killing coronaviruses.
- On the question of bringing light into the lungs, I've heard about proposals to do this for COVID-19. And here is a paper about doing it ex vivo (outside the body) to treat hepatitis. Apparently it worked. "A Clinical Trial Evaluating the Effects of Ultra-Violet C treatment (UVC) during Ex Vivo Lung Perfusion (EVLP) as a Method of Inactivating Hepatitis C Infection in Donor Lungs"
- [UPDATE] Here's a video which was banned from YouTube and Twitter in response to the collective anti-Trump freak-out. Apparently, doctors at Cedars-Sanai have developed a UV light specifically for coronavirus that is inserted into the lung. The video is still up on Venmo for now, though Blogger, a Google Co, will not allow me to embed it here! All I can do is provide the link: AYTU Healight from Healight on Vimeo.
P.S. The headline above from The Daily Beast that says Trump's "...Favored Drug Is Discredited" is an obvious reference to hydroxychloroquine (HCQ) which recently got some very misleading negative press. Is HCQ another trap? Consider that HCQ is still the number one drug for COVID in the world, usually along with zinc and anti-biotics. How do you think Chris Cuomo emerged from his basement unscathed? And how about Boris Johnson? And Justin Trudeau? And Tom Hanks? Not to mention whole nations.