By Jorge Macías, La Opinión
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Martha Ugarte’s whole family contracted COVID-19, but for a time in her life she worked in a pharmaceutical laboratory in Tijuana, Baja California, and she guarantees that drinking and doing vapor therapy with chlorine dioxide – a powerful disinfectant – “helped” them heal.
“I bought the chemicals on Amazon and I prepared the mixture myself,” Martha told La Opinion. “On the second day I made more chlorine dioxide so it would be stronger, so it would be more concentrated.”
In her story, Martha, who is from Acatlan de Perez, Oaxaca, says that her husband had contracted coronavirus; he would spend his time sleeping, he was weak and could not breath well.
Her daughter had a sore throat and when the illness made it impossible to breath, she used anti-inflammatory medication, but then she decided it was time to prepare the chlorine dioxide.
“In my case, when I washed my nose [with the chemical], I saw how the phlegm fell out, though it was hardly noticeable. I couldn’t breathe.”
The Ugarte family members got sick before there were COVID-19 vaccines.
Martha, 60 years old, claims they started doing nebulizer treatments “to kill the virus”, using, also, humidifiers in the house: a total of four of them, one for each bedroom and a fifth one in the living room.
Martha says that the combination of the cleaning out their nostrils and throat, plus taking a 15-milliliter dose of chlorine dioxide helped “heal” them.
“We would put 15 milliliters of chlorine dioxide in each liter of water in shots every 15 minutes…, with this treatment, in two hours you would kill the virus in a room.”
Danger of death from using chlorine dioxide
“We know that chlorine dioxide is quite common for cleaning clothes, but it’s nothing special regarding coronavirus,” said Dr. Silvia Abascal. “That is one of the biggest myths that came out from the beginning of the pandemic and is very dangerous.”
The expert indicated that ingesting chlorine dioxide, a powerful disinfectant, can be extremely harmful for human beings.
“It depends a lot on the concentration, but we know that people can be poisoned and even die,” she explained. “You can be burned from your mouth to your esophagus; it’s quite harmful because it attacks the digestive system.”
However, the ingestion of chlorine dioxide can also harm your liver, your kidneys and even cause cardiac arrhythmias.
According to the Carbotecnia learning center, the chemical of water with chlorine dioxide and its effects on health from inhalation can produce a quite severe irritation, bronchial spasms and pulmonary edema, though not right away. It can also cause severe migraines and all the symptoms can appear belatedly and be persistent, to the extent that long-term exposure can cause chronic bronchitis.
A fatal case
In January, 2021, Jorge Garcia Rua, an Argentine patient with severe coronavirus, passed away after a judge forced a private clinic to administer chlorine dioxide. Garcia Rua was hospitalized at the Sanatorio Otamendi, where his wife had also passed away.
His wife’s son, Jose Maria Lorenzo, had filed a request with the Federal Court that the man urgently receive chlorine dioxide, which was not authorized by any health authority in the world for treatment of COVID-19.
That young man followed the instructions of a neurosurgeon that recommended an intravenous injection of chlorine dioxide, in addition to nebulizer treatments with ibuprofen. Garcia Rua died on January 11.
However, since the beginning of the pandemic, in the United States the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) and other government agencies always warned that chlorine dioxide, promoted as a “miracle cure” on the Internet, could be a danger to human health if ingested.
“Let’s remember the news when former president [Donald] Trump himself jokingly suggested taking disinfectants to treat COVID-19,” said Dr. Silvia Abascal. “Later, his own doctors had to retract his words; the same thing happened with hydroxychloroquine and ivermectin.”
Hydroxychloroquine or “Trump’s antidote” received a serious warning from the FDA about its use, because outside of a hospital environment or clinical trials, it could cause heart rate problems. Its use as approved for humans works exclusively in cases of malaria, lupus and rheumatoid arthritis, but not against COVID-19.
Meanwhile, ivermectin, used as a horse dewormer is not authorized for use against COVID-19. In humans the tablets approved by the FDA are used to treat people with strongyloidiasis and onchocerciasis, two diseases caused by parasitic worms. In addition, some topical forms (on the skin) of ivermectin are approved for treating external parasites like lice and for skin conditions like rosacea.
MYTH
People can protect themselves against COVID-19 with bleach, chlorine dioxide, disinfectants or rubbing alcohol either orally, bathing in it or rubbing it on their body.
REALITY
These products are highly toxic and never should be swallowed or injected into the body. Call 911 if this should occur.
Disinfectants, bleach, soap and water may be used to clean surfaces, a very important step to stop the spread of coronavirus that causes COVID-19, but never try self-treating or preventing COVID-19 by rubbing oneself or bathing any part of the body with bleach, disinfectant or alcohol. Hand disinfectants contain alcohol, but are formulated to be safe for use on hands.
