Multiple news outlets were ridiculed for suggesting that President Trump was to blame for the death of a man who consumed fish tank cleaner as a failed cure for the coronavirus.
Trump has been touting a malaria drug, hydroxychloroquine, as a potential treatment for the COVID-19 virus. He has noted that the drug is being reviewed by American authorities and considered for future use but has said the decision will be left to doctors as to the benefits and risks of taking the medication.
Unfortunately, chloroquine phosphate is found in many cleaning products, including the chemicals used to clean fish tanks. One couple in Arizona consumed the products as a desperate attempt to prevent themselves from contracting the virus after hearing the president’s remarks. The man died after being poisoned, and his wife was hospitalized.
Several outlets, however, failed to make prominent and clear that the couple drank cleaning products and attempted a self-cure without any guidance from doctors. Instead, they tied Trump to the man’s death without the context of the situation. Many criticized the reporting on Twitter.
They ingested fish tank cleaner, not medication. https://t.co/C7xraCPtth
— Rep. Paul Gosar, DDS (@RepGosar) March 24, 2020
This appears to be an extremely significant distinction that ought to be made explicitly and *prominently* clear in any story about the Arizona couple who swallowed fish-tank-cleaning chemicals, so as to not spawn panic about FDA-approved chloroquine medications: https://t.co/RaADNPQVJy
— Glenn Greenwald (@ggreenwald) March 24, 2020
They sadly ingested FISH TANK CLEANER — but you won’t read that in this irresponsible tweet thread, until the last tweet. They hate Trump so much, they’ll do anything to mislead the American people during a pandemic. Sick! https://t.co/gEvohLtCzB
— Dan Scavino Jr.?? (@Scavino45) March 24, 2020
Some of Trump’s most vocal critics also found it irresponsible to frame the story without the proper context. Dr. Eugene Gu, the CEO of a telemedicine company who constantly criticizes Trump on Twitter, responded to NBC’s coverage of the illness.
“I thought they took chloroquine the medication and didn’t know it was fish tank cleaner until the very end of the thread, which is a huge difference in the framing of the story,” he wrote.
I thought they took chloroquine the medication and didn’t know it was fish tank cleaner until the very end of the thread, which is a huge difference in the framing of the story.
— Eugene Gu, MD (@eugenegu) March 24, 2020
Some outlets corrected their coverage of the incident. Axios tweeted a correction on Tuesday morning, writing, “We have deleted this tweet and corrected our story because it did not reflect the full nature of the self-medication done with an additive commonly used to clean fish tanks.”
We have deleted this tweet and corrected our story because it did not reflect the full nature of the self-medication done with an additive commonly used to clean fish tanks. https://t.co/0zucqRaIkI pic.twitter.com/3YY86rju2w
— Axios (@axios) March 24, 2020
While the anti-malaria drug has not been cleared for treatment of the virus in the United States, at least one man who was suffering from the coronavirus and was given the medication in a clinical trial at a hospital under the supervision of doctors said the drug saved his life. Nigeria, however, reported two deaths on Monday.
