After repeatedly hearing Trump’s Covid-19 briefing about chloroquine as a potential cure, an Arizona man took a dose and died of poisoning. The man’s wife who also ingested the chemical but survived, said they decided to drink the fish tank chloroquine phosphate since Trump had repeatedly mentioned chloroquine as the potential Covid-19 cure.
In a phone interview with NBC News’ the woman told Vaughn Hillyard
“They kept saying it was approved for other things, and Trump kept saying it was basically pretty much a cure.”
However, the Arizona couple, each downed a teaspoon of fish tank cleaner with chloroquine as one of the ingredients, and not the anti-malaria chloroquine drug that president Trump had touted as a “game changer” in last week’s coronavirus briefings.
Trump who is known not to accept responsibility for his actions, will simply shrug off the incident as “fake news.” Still, Trump has been criticized repeatedly for spreading false information, particularly during the Covid-19 crisis. Even if he is not directly responsible for the chloroquine death, he disregarded reporting protocols and the fact that there are people who are inclined to self-medicate.
The Arizona woman said she and her husband tried the medicine even if they have not been diagnosed as Covid-19 positive; just so they can have protection from the contagion. The Arizona couple had proved true what medical experts have been warning the public as dangers of self-medication.
Underscoring the Dangers of Self-Medication
Time and again, physicians and health experts have warned people about the dangers of practicing self-medication in treating self-diagnosed symptoms or existing medical conditions. Although it is quite understandable that people do so because of the high costs of medical care and drug treatments, the price to pay in exchange would be their life, if not higher costs of treatment.
Aside from death, other risks presented by self-medication include worsening an existing health disorder, masking the root cause of a disease, as well as triggering drug abuse caused by taking incorrect choice of drug, incorrect dosage and/or incorrect manner of administration.