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To try to kill the novel coronavirus, some Americans are unsafely using disinfectants and cleaners, including washing food with bleach, using the products on bare skin, and inhaling and ingesting them, federal health officials reported Friday. Health experts caution explicitly against using cleaning products in those ways. The findings come from an online survey of 502 adults conducted by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention in May. Thirty-nine percent had misused the cleaning products, and one quarter reported “an adverse health effect that they believed was a result” of the products. (Joseph, 6/5)

Washing food with bleach, using household cleaning or disinfectant products on bare skin, and intentionally inhaling or ingesting these products were some of the most commonly reported “high-risk” practices in a May 4 online survey of 502 U.S. adults, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) reported. The survey’s lead author said it was undertaken following a “sharp increase” in calls to poison control centers for exposure to cleaners and disinfectants during the pandemic. (6/5)

In a survey published Friday, 39% of 502 respondents reported engaging in “non-recommend, high-risk practices,” including using bleach on food, applying household cleaning or disinfectant products to their skin and inhaling or ingesting such products. The agency also found many people had limited knowledge of how to safely prepare and use cleaning products and disinfectants. Only 23% responded that room temperature water should be used to dilute bleach and 35% said that bleach should not be mixed with vinegar. More surprisingly, only 58% of respondents knew bleach shouldn’t be mixed with ammonia. (Rodriguez, 6/5)

People said they were cleaning more frequently because of the pandemic, but only about half said that they really knew how to clean and disinfect their home safely. And of those people who were surveyed that acknowledged that they used high-risk cleaning practices to prevent the spread of Covid-19, more were likely to report health problems related to cleaning. The biggest problem area was people's limited understanding about how to prepare cleaning solutions. Only 23% knew, for instance, to use only room temperature water to dilute bleach solutions. (Christensen, 6/5)

Some cases have involved substances that are harder to obtain, such as the diabetes drug metformin, after the possibility was raised that it might have a therapeutic effect against Covid-19. In one case, a woman swallowed hair dye containing a molecule called paraphenylenediamine that can cause a severe allergic reaction and burn the body’s soft tissues. Her goal appeared to be internal disinfection. Cases of poisoning by ingestion of essential oils, with the same goal, have increased in places too. (Spinney, 6/8)