Buenos Aires – An Argentine judge forced a private clinic to administer chlorine dioxide, used as a powerful disinfectant, to a patient with coronavirus who died on Monday in a case that doctors labeled “a scandal”. The United States Food and Drug Administration (FDA) and other agencies warn that chlorine dioxide, presented as an online “miracle cure”, can be dangerous to human health if consumed.
In the wake of President Trump suggesting that disinfectants could be injected to treat COVID-19, several Americans were hospitalized for ingesting cleaning agents and at least three people were charged with crimes for selling chlorine-based products as drugs for the disease.
The patient’s stepson filed a lawsuit last Thursday, the day after her mother’s death from COVID-19, for the compound to be given to her husband in critical condition.
A judge accepted the request the same day and ordered the Otamendi y Miroli clinic in Buenos Aires to administer the substance, prescribed by the patient’s doctor.
The clinic unsuccessfully appealed the decision and gave the man the substance, although he stressed that he would not be responsible for any negative results.
The patient, a 92-year-old man who was in critical condition with the virus, died on Monday, confirmed the family lawyer.
Dico Solis / AP
The FDA has warned that consumption of chlorine dioxide products can “endanger a person’s health”, has no proven effectiveness against COVID-19 and is known to cause liver and respiratory failure, among other harmful effects.
The Pan American Health Organization, the Argentine Society of Infectious Diseases and the country’s National Administration of Medicines, Foods and Medical Devices have also issued warnings against the use of chlorine-based products in the treatment of COVID-19.
The judge ruled that giving treatment did not threaten “serious harm” to the clinic, but could, conversely, “prevent the condition from worsening”.
Doctors criticized the decision.
“Judicial freak and a scandal”
“It is really worrying for a judge to decide that a doctor should administer a substance for which there is no scientific evidence, especially when it is intravenous,” said Omar Sued, president of the Argentine Society of Infectious Diseases.
“It is not a judge’s decision to administer a drug that he does not know to a patient. It is not his role.”
Ignacio Maglio, a lawyer for the Argentine health NGO Fundacion Huesped, said the case was a judicial exaggeration, a “judicial aberration and a scandal”.
Chlorine dioxide is used to disinfect medical and laboratory equipment, to treat water in low concentrations or as a bleach.
The family lawyer told C5N television that his client will sue the Otamendi clinic for holding her responsible for the patient’s death because she “delayed treatment”.
“The man died of a hospital infection and because of the delay in treatment,” said the lawyer.
Argentina announced on Monday that it would launch a new COVID-19 therapy, developed by local scientists, using serum extracted from horses that developed antibodies after being injected with coronavirus proteins.
The serum developed by the biotechnology company Inmunova has been tested on patients in 18 hospitals for the clinical testing phase and will now be distributed to hospitals and clinics under a special license granted by the Argentine drug control agency ANMAT.
Inmunova’s director, Fernando Goldbaum, said the serum helps patients by suppressing viral proliferation, giving the body time to assemble its own defense system.
The developers of the therapy said it reduced mortality by 45%.
The laboratory of the Argentine Biological Institute is producing about 12 thousand treatments per month, according to a press release.
Argentina, with a population of 44 million, recorded more than 1.7 million cases of coronavirus and almost 44,500 deaths.