Name: Fact check: Texas congressman touts product, says it kills coronavirus for 2 weeks
Brand: houstonchronicle.com
SKU: houstonchronicle-com-29
Availability: OnlineOnly

critic

Fact check: Texas congressman touts product, says it kills coronavirus for 2 weeks

preview

The claim: “Health care workers go through a misting tent going into the hospital and it kills the coronavirus completely dead not only right then, but any time in the next 14 days that the virus touches anything that’s been sprayed it is killed.” — U.S. Rep. Louie Gohmert, R-Tyler.Gohmert made the comment as he discussed a powder that he said is already in use in Germany. He added that he is trying to get a similar product from an Arizona-based company “fast-tracked” in the United States.PolitiFact ruling: Pants on Fire. No such product seems to exist and no similar product is in use in Germany. There are no products currently in use as disinfecting agents in the United States that come close to meeting the description Gohmert offered.TEXAS TAKE:Discussion: Gohmert’s office did not provide any more information about the product or the company in Arizona he says is working on the powder disinfectant.“What your congressman said is absolute nonsense,” said Dr. Jörn Wegner, a spokesman for the German Hospital Association. “There are no such tents and there’s no powder or magical cure.”About PolitiFactPolitiFact is a fact-checking project to help you sort out fact from fiction in politics. Truth-O-Meter ratings are determined by a panel of three editors. The burden of proof is on the speaker, and PolitiFact rates statements based on the information known at the time the statement is madeThomas Ruttkowski, spokesman for the German Society of Hospital Hygiene, said there is no product like the one Gohmert described.“I’m sorry, but we did not hear about that magic powder,” he said in an email. “Thank you for your mail. … Finally, something to laugh about.”Amy Cross, project coordinator at the , said she is not aware of a product on the list of EPA-regulated surface disinfectants that meets the description Gohmert offered.There are some products that are powder-based and can be combined with water and used in a liquid form, Cross said. But like all of the disinfectants on the list, the product is a liquid and has a set contact time — the amount of time a surface needs to stay wet with a product for it to be effective.Cross said this time varies by product, ranging from 15 seconds to 15 minutes.“The idea that it would have residual activity after the surface is no longer wet to kill that virus is incredibly surprising to me, because I haven’t found any other products that have those similar claims,” she said of the powder Gohmert described.World Health Organization guidelines emphasize the importance of “environmental cleaning and disinfection procedures” and state that washing surfaces with “water and detergent and applying commonly used hospital-level disinfectants (such as sodium hypochlorite) are effective and sufficient procedures.”Wegner of the German Hospital Association echoed these recommendations.“The only protection against the virus are personal protection equipment — masks, disposable coats and gloves — and proper hygiene,” he said.

The claim: “Health care workers go through a misting tent going into the hospital and it kills the coronavirus completely dead not only right then, but any time in the next 14 days that the virus touches anything that’s been sprayed it is killed.” — U.S. Rep. Louie Gohmert, R-Tyler.Gohmert made the comment as he discussed a powder that he said is already in use in Germany. He added that he is trying to get a similar product from an Arizona-based company “fast-tracked” in the United States.PolitiFact ruling: Pants on Fire. No such product seems to exist and no similar product is in use in...

public

Madlin Mekelburg

houstonchronicle.com

Credible

Speculation

Anecdotal Evidence

Generalization

Stacking the Deck

Appeal to Authority

Straw Man

Slippery Slope

Emotional Appeal

Red Herring

False Dilemma

Illogical

Moral Equivalency

Ad Hominem

Correlation w/o Causation

Semantics

Begging the Question

Faulty Analogy

Non Sequitur

Bandwagon

Dogmatism

Failing Occam's Razor

Biased

Pure Opinion

Hit Piece

Racial Bias

National Bias

Religious Bias

Financial Incentive

Political Agenda

Gender Bias

Misused Image/Video

Study Misinterpreted

Mistake

Misused Term

Science Misrepresented

Factual Error

Satire

Surface Level

Lack of Reliable Sources

Sensational

Not Credible

Investigative

Balanced

Well Sourced

Great Context

sports

entertainment

U.S.

international

business

technology

science

culture

politics

media

health

Fact check: Texas congressman touts product, says it kills coronavirus for 2 weeks

No article scores yet.

CRITIC REVIEWS

PUBLIC REVIEWS