April 24, 2020

Lysol Producer Says Do Not Ingest or Inject to Fight Coronavirus

Source: Mediaite

The British company that makes Lysol, and other disinfectants, released a public statement imploring consumers NOT to administer their disinfectant products in the human body. The remarkable statement comes hours after President Donald Trump curiously suggested some medically questionable remedies to the deadly Covid-19 contagion behind the coronavirus pandemic.

During Thursday night’s regular White House briefing from the coronavirus task force, President Trump suggested that household bleaching agents in most surface disinfectants to a possible internal treatment for humans, which would be toxic and possibly fatal.

“Then I see the disinfectant, one minute. Is there a way we can do something like that, by injection inside, or almost a cleaning,” Trump noted. “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’ll have to use medical doctors with. But it sounds interesting to me. So we’ll see, but the whole concept of the light, where it goes in one minute. That’s pretty powerful.”

Reckitt Benckiser Group is a British multinational consumer goods company that produces Lysol among many other disinfecting household goods, directly responded to Trump’s comments, writing “we must be clear that under no circumstance should our disinfectant products be administered into the human body (through injection, ingestion or any other route).”

Read more: https://www.mediaite.com/trump/lysol-producer-releases-statement-after-trump-briefing-do-not-ingest-disinfectants/

April 24, 2020

He's Baaaack: Rudy mocks contact tracing for COVID-19, then says we need contact tracing for obesity

Former New York City Mayor Rudy Giuliani appeared on Fox News’ The Ingraham Angle on Thursday night, and, along with its host, mocked New York Governor Andrew Cuomo’s ambitious plan to identify and isolate possible Covid-19 infections in an attempt to slowly reopen the state’s economy.

<...>

....he then brusquely dismissed the plan announced by Cuomo in partnership with former New York City Mayor Michael Bloomberg, to hire 10,000 contact tracers for coronavirus containment before any widespread restart of the state’s businesses.

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....he suggested massive contact tracing for several other health issues...

“We should trace a provider for cancer and heart disease and obesity and — I mean, a lot of things kill you more than Covid-19,” Giuliani said. “So we should be traced for all those things. Because life is a certain degree of risk and we have to be willing to live with it.”

https://www.mediaite.com/news/rudy-giuliani-mocks-totally-ridiculous-ny-contact-tracing-plan-then-calls-for-tracking-of-non-contagious-health-issues-like-cancer-obesity/

April 23, 2020

Study: Elderly Trump voters dying of coronavirus could cost him in November

Source: Politico

An academic journal projects that deaths of 65-and-over Republican voters in several swing states will far exceed those of Democrats.

Mass casualties from the coronavirus could upend the political landscape in battleground states and shift contests away from President Donald Trump, according to a new analysis.

Academic researchers writing in a little-noticed public administration journal -- Administrative Theory & Praxis -- conclude that when considering nothing other than the tens of thousands of deaths projected from the virus, demographic shifts alone could be enough to swing crucial states to Joe Biden in the fall.

"The pandemic is going to take a greater toll on the conservative electorate leading into this election -- and that's simply just a calculation of age," Andrew Johnson, the lead author and a professor of management at Texas A&M University-Corpus Christi, said in an interview. "The virus is killing more older voters, and in many states that's the key to a GOP victory."

Read more: https://www.politico.com/news/2020/04/23/how-coronavirus-could-upend-2020-battlegrounds-204708

April 23, 2020

New Polling: Biden leading in Pennsylvania, Michigan, Wisconsin, and North Carolina

Here are some new Public Policy Polling surveys in four key battleground states:

Pennsylvania: Biden 51%, Trump 44%
Michigan: Biden 51%, Trump 44%
Wisconsin: Biden 50%, Trump 45%
North Carolina: Biden 49%, Trump 46%

https://politicalwire.com/2020/04/23/biden-leads-in-four-swing-states/

April 23, 2020

Trump and Fox News Are Suddenly Silent on Their "Miracle" Drug Hydroxychloroquine

Their reckless promotion flew in the face of expert warnings.

After aggressively promoting an anti-malaria drug as a “miracle” in the fight against COVID-19—a push that flew in the face of repeated warnings from experts—President Donald Trump and Fox News personalities suddenly appear to be cooling on hydroxychloroquine just as a new study reports the drug could lead to a higher death rate.

“The fact of the matter is we don’t know,” Dr. Mehmet Oz told the hosts of Fox & Friends on Wednesday. “Thankfully these medications are prescriptions only… We are better off waiting for the randomized trials Dr. Fauci has been asking for.”

The segment was a head-spinning reversal for Oz, who less than a week ago encouraged Americans to participate in an at-home hydroxychloroquine clinical trial. “They mail you the pills, you start the protocol, tell them what happened… Be part of the solution,” he told Fox News viewers in a segment on April 16, the latest in Oz’s ongoing promotion of hydroxychloroquine on the conservative news network.

The attempt to strike a more cautious approach this week comes on the heels of new studies that showed hydroxychloroquine yielded no benefit in helping patients infected with the virus; one study on US veterans reported more deaths among those treated with the drug than those who received normal care.

When asked about the veterans’ study on Tuesday, Trump, perhaps the biggest hydroxychloroquine cheerleader of all, dodged.

Read more:

https://www.motherjones.com/coronavirus-updates/2020/04/trump-and-fox-news-are-suddenly-silent-on-their-miracle-drug-hydroxychloroquine/

April 23, 2020

Holy Shit: Chyron of the Day

If you missed President Trump’s daily briefing on the coronavirus pandemic, this CNN chyron pretty much tells you everything.



https://politicalwire.com/2020/04/22/chyron-of-the-day-3/

CNN don't play

April 23, 2020

Fox News Poll: Biden Leads in Michigan 49% to 41%

A new Fox News poll in Michigan finds Joe Biden leading President Trump in the presidential race, 49% to 41%.

https://politicalwire.com/2020/04/22/biden-leads-in-michigan/

April 22, 2020

So Trump just told the US Navy to "shoot down" Iranian boats....

How do you shoot down a boat?

Don't you shoot down planes?

This guy is dumber than a box of rocks....

April 21, 2020

Study of Trump-Promoted Coronavirus Drug Finds More Deaths, No Benefit

Source: Daily Beast

The anti-malaria drug flogged over and over again by President Donald Trump as a coronavirus treatment didn't help veterans who got it, according to a new government-funded study.

The research, which has not yet been peer-reviewed but was backed by the National Institutes of Health and the University of Virginia, is the latest evidence that hydroxychloroquine is not the magic bullet that Trump and his allies suggested it was.


"In this study, we found no evidence that use of hydroxychloroquine, either with or without azithromycin, reduced the risk of mechanical ventilation in patients hospitalized with Covid-19," the authors wrote.

In fact, the analysis of data from 368 patients at veterans hospitals found 28 percent of those who got it died--compared to 11 percent who received the standard treatment without the drug. And 22 percent of the patients who got hydroxychloroquine plus the antibiotic azithromycin died.

Read more: https://www.thedailybeast.com/study-of-hydroxychloroquine-trump-promoted-coronavirus-drug-finds-more-deaths

April 21, 2020

Drug touted by Trump showed no benefit and actually caused more deaths

“A malaria drug widely touted by President Trump for treating the new coronavirus showed no benefit in a large analysis of its use in U.S. veterans hospitals,” the AP reports.

“There were more deaths among those given hydroxychloroquine versus standard care, researchers reported.”

https://politicalwire.com/2020/04/21/study-finds-no-benefit-from-malaria-drug/

Here's a video of Trump touting the drug: