MSM criticized for linking President Trump to the death of Arizona man: “They ingested fish tank cleaner, not medication.”

Multiple MSM news outlets were ridiculed for suggesting that Trump was to blame for the death of a man who consumed fish tank cleaner as a failed cure for the coronavirus.

We have deleted this tweet and corrected our story because it did not reflect the full nature of the self-medication done with an additive commonly used to clean fish tanks. https://t.co/0zucqRaIkI pic.twitter.com/3YY86rju2w

— Axios (@axios) March 24, 2020

Breitbart:

The media rushed to blame President Donald Trump on Monday for the death of an Arizona man who ingested a form of chloroquine — before it turned out that the man had ingested a fish tank cleaner with a similar chemical.

Reuters reported: An Arizona man has died and his wife is in critical condition after they ingested chloroquine phosphate – an aquarium cleaning product similar to drugs that have been named by President Trump as potential treatments for coronavirus infection.

The couple, in their 60s, experienced immediate distress after swallowing the drug, an additive used at aquariums to clean fish tanks, according to Banner Health Hospital in Phoenix.

Chloroquine phosphate shares the same active ingredient as malaria drugs that President Trump has touted as possibly effective against COVID-19, the potentially life-threatening disease caused by the coronavirus.

Many media outlets, however, reported that the man died after taking “chloroquine.”

Axios, for example, had to delete a tweet and issue a correction after reporting, initially: “Man dies after self-medicating with chloroquine.” More

They sadly ingested FISH TANK CLEANER — but you won’t read that in this irresponsible tweet thread, until the last tweet. They hate Trump so much, they’ll do anything to mislead the American people during a pandemic. Sick! https://t.co/gEvohLtCzB

— Dan Scavino Jr.🇺🇸 (@Scavino45) March 24, 2020

This appears to be an extremely significant distinction that ought to be made explicitly and *prominently* clear in any story about the Arizona couple who swallowed fish-tank-cleaning chemicals, so as to not spawn panic about FDA-approved chloroquine medications: https://t.co/RaADNPQVJy

— Glenn Greenwald (@ggreenwald) March 24, 2020

They ingested fish tank cleaner, not medication. https://t.co/C7xraCPtth

— Rep. Paul Gosar, DDS (@RepGosar) March 24, 2020

I thought they took chloroquine the medication and didn’t know it was fish tank cleaner until the very end of the thread, which is a huge difference in the framing of the story.

— Eugene Gu, MD (@eugenegu) March 24, 2020

Yet the MSM never blamed Barack Obama for Tide pods eaters!