Remember when, during the Covid-19 epidemic, Trump startled people in the medical community by suggesting that ingesting disinfectants could kill the virus? This was even more horrifying than his suggestions of using Ivermectin (the horse dewormer) and laser light as cures. It was not clear at that time where he got this crackpot idea but since he is full of crackpot ideas, people presumably did not think it worth tracking down the source.

But now it appears we know. The idea of using bleach was suggested by someone named Andreas Kalcker who markets chlorine dioxide, described as “a potentially life-threatening form of industrial bleach that is claimed without evidence to be a cure for cancer, Covid and autism.”

Andreas Kalcker is among 50 listed speakers at the “Truth Seekers Conference”, a two-day event opening on Thursday at the US president’s resort, Trump National Doral Miami. The event features several anti-vaxxers and other conspiracy theorists who have been brought together by the far-right commentator Charlie Ward.

Kalcker, a German national thought to be living in Switzerland, markets the bleach under the brand name “CDS”, for chlorine dioxide solution. His online brochures claim that the toxic chemical, which he admits is a disinfectant, can “eliminate pathogens” that cause disease.

He boasts it is “possibly the greatest medical discovery of the last 100 years”.

Government health authorities in the US and Spain have denounced the remedy as fraudulent, saying it is no different from drinking bleach. The US Food and Drug Administration (FDA) has warned that it can cause serious and even life-threatening side-effects, including dehydration, diarrhoea and kidney injury.

He is now scheduled to be a speaker at a gathering of crackpots to be held at Trump golf resort in Florida.

Kalcker’s appearance at Thursday’s conference is the latest indication that potentially dangerous alternative health approaches are being emboldened and are proliferating during Trump’s second term in the White House. The US president’s choice of the prominent vaccine skeptic, Robert Kennedy Jr, to head the Department of Health and Human Services has spread alarm through medical circles.

Kennedy, who until 2023 led the anti-vaccine group Children’s Health Defense, has talked about treating the current measles outbreak in Texas with cod liver oil. He also praised without any evidence two doctors in Texas whom he claimed had “healed” 300 children with measles using the inhaled steroid budesonide.

At his confirmation hearings for the health secretary job, Kennedy directly mentioned chlorine dioxide. He praised Trump’s handling of pandemic, saying the president had not only speeded up the search for a Covid vaccine but had looked at “all of the different remedies including … even chlorine dioxide”.

Kennedy’s remark helped solve one of the enduring mysteries of Trump’s first term. In April 2020, early in the pandemic, he astonished medical scientists around the world by advocating the use of “disinfectant” as a treatment for Covid.

At a White House press conference, Trump said: “I see the disinfectant where it knocks it out in a minute, one minute. And is there a way we can do something like that, by injection inside or almost a cleaning?”

Kennedy’s confirmation comments clarified that Trump was indeed referring to chlorine dioxide, a toxin that been falsely claimed as a “miracle cure” for autism, cancer, malaria and HIV/Aids.

At least during Trump’s first time, there were credible scientists still playing prominent roles in public health agencies. Now with another crackpot like RFK Jr. in charge of HHS and placing his own crackpots in charge of agencies, there will be very little pushback on these crackpot ideas from even the remaining scientists since it is clear that if they do speak up, they will be fired.