On April 23 at the daily COVID-19 briefing, President Trump mused about the possible use of light and disinfectants to combat the virus (video).  The mainstream media immediately broke out in a viral epidemic of overreaction, alleging that the president had suggested that folks ingest Clorox and other bleaches.  If Donald Trump weren't president, he could sue for such lies.  In any event, it appears that the president may have been on to something.

On the May 1 edition of Fox News's The Ingraham Angle, Laura Ingraham focused on the possibility of using "disinfectants" to combat the Wuhan virus.  Laura quoted Dr. Burton Dickey, co-founder of Pulmotect: "The drug lands on the surface of lung epithelial cells and signals them to produce superoxide and peroxide for several days[.] ... Similar to the way bleach kills germs on a kitchen table, superoxide and peroxide in the lungs rapidly kill germs that are inhaled."

Ingraham then interviewed the two top guys at Pulmotect Inc., Colin Broom and Leo Linbeck.  What their approach is all about is enlisting the innate immune system to fight infection.  Here's Linbeck:

Nature has evolved this really exquisite mechanism for getting your lungs to secrete superoxides at the time they need them[.] ... We've been able to figure out how to stimulate that, so that we can sorta turn on your innate immunity and put it on high alert. This is your front line defense. And by doing that we can prevent the infection in the lungs, and that's the game, right. The game here is to stop pneumonia. Pneumonia is what kills people.

Pneumonia is what necessitates the use of ventilators when COVID-19 patients experience the cytokine storm.  Laura continued: "We do have innate immunity, and we have to make sure we can trigger it if possible.  And that's what you're trying to do here, correct?"  Linbeck:

That's correct. We really have two immune systems. We have an innate immune system and an adaptive immune system. A lot of the attention is focused on vaccines and antibodies and those really leverage the adaptive immune system. We're focused on the innate immune system, and stimulating that. And what's really exciting about the innate immune system is it is not specific to a pathogen. So if we can figure out a way to unlock and harness the power of the innate immune system, then not only can we protect against Covid, but future emerging pathogens could also be responsive to the same treatments.

The entire segment lasts about six and a half minutes.  To watch it, click here and then click on minute 25 on the progress bar.  You may be required to sit through a minute of ads.  Then you might check out the Pulmotect website.

For the record, at the April 23 briefing, the word "disinfectant" appeared exactly four times and was used only once by President Trump.  The other three iterations were provided by DHS acting undersecretary Bill Bryan.  The word "bleach" was never used by the president, but Bryan used it twice.  A third instance of "bleach" was supplied by a question from the press pool.  As for mentions of the commercial product Clorox, there weren't any.  But that didn't stop the deluded and dishonest Stacey Abrams on Meet the Press from talking about "Mike Pence nodding pathetically at the same time about ingesting Clorox as the president gave more false information to the public."  And in a clip from MSNBC that Laura used in her segment Friday night, Ms. Abrams said, "He lies to the American people about injecting Clorox into their veins."

There's the "free press" for you.

Jon N. Hall of ULTRACON OPINION is a programmer from Kansas City.