The Cincinnati Drug and Poison Information Center1 recently reported an uptick in accidental exposure to a substance in an at-home antigen test kit for COVID-19 that has the potential to lower blood pressure and cause seizures. The reagent in question is sodium azide.
Testing and cases have been at the heart of fearmongering designed to change people’s behavior since the early months of 2020. When the news broke from China that a novel coronavirus had been detected, many of the world’s health organizations went into overdrive, ostensibly to protect public health and reduce the number of potential deaths.
But, with the passage of time, it’s become glaringly apparent that the public health efforts were ineffective and public health officials were ignoring the science about those efforts. To continue to drive fear, it must be demonstrated that many people are infected with the novel virus, whether they are sick or not.
In fact, through the latter months of 2020 and into 2021, it didn’t appear to matter whether there were symptoms, only if there was a positive “test” — and a positive test meant there was a “case” of COVID-19. The greater the number of cases, the greater the fear.
Initially, public health officials used a PCR test to show a positive case of COVID. Later came antigen testing and now there are at-home antigen test kits that are causing a whole new problem.2
What Is Sodium Azide?
Sodium azide is used as a preservative agent in the rapid antigen kits sold for at-home use by several companies, including BD Veritor, BinaxNow, Celltrion DiaTrust, and Flowflex.3 According to the CDC,4 the chemical acts rapidly and is potentially deadly. In its pure form, it’s an odorless white solid.
The chemical is used in automobile airbags since it converts to nitrogen gas inside the airbag when an electrical charge during impact causes it to explode. It’s also used as a chemical preservative in laboratories and hospitals, for pest control on farms and as a detonator in an explosive. If you ingest this chemical, how serious the poisoning may be depends on how much chemical is in the exposure and the length of time a person is exposed.
Some of the immediate signs and symptoms include coughing, dizziness, nausea and vomiting, rapid breathing and heart rate, restlessness and skin burns.5 Exposure can lead to lung injury, seizures and low blood pressure. Those who have survived large doses may suffer from heart and brain damage.6
Poison Center Records Uptick in Accidental Exposure
Exposure to sodium azide can be harmful to children and adults. The most common calls to the Cincinnati Poison Center have been about children finding the reagent liquid and either exposing their skin or putting it in their mouth.7 In other cases, adults have reported “container confusion,” in which the reagent vial was mistaken for another medication.
Some hospitals have also reported receiving phone calls about exposure, including Cincinnati Children’s Hospital Medical Center. The pharmacist and clinical toxicologist for Cincinnati Children’s Hospital reported that the first phone call came in early November from children and adults.
The National Poison Control Center8 has also issued a warning about sodium azide found in the at-home antigen COVID-19 test kits. They are receiving reports about accidental exposure in children and adults, posting several case reports on their advisory page. One adult couple misunderstood the directions and used the extraction solution directly in their nose with the swab.
In a second case, a woman mistook the vial for her antibiotic eye drops and in a third case, an adult was exposed to a small amount of the fluid on her hand after using the rapid antigen test at home. Just that small amount caused her thumb to tingle, flush and become mildly swollen. An adviser from Health Canada spoke with The Epoch Times, saying:9
“Small doses of sodium azide can lower blood pressure, and larger doses may cause more serious health effects. ProClin is also found in many kits. It contains chemicals that can cause skin and eye irritation, as well as allergic reactions.”
The ProClin preservative is a water-soluble chemical used to extend the shelf life10 of in vitro diagnostic devices by inhibiting microbial growth. The Poison Control Center in Canada has now recorded at least 50 phone calls due to accidental exposure from the rapid test kits, including ProClin preservatives and sodium azide. February 24, 2022, they posted an advisory, warning:11
“… the product labelling and instructions may not describe or disclose the risks associated with misuse or accidental ingestion. This advisory is intended to help fill that labelling gap, and warn Canadians about the risks associated with misuse, accidental ingestion or spillage of rapid antigen test kit solutions.”
In other words, the test kits being distributed in Canada are not labeled to indicate the contents may contain chemicals that can cause unintended effects if it is accidentally ingested or spilled.
Antigen Tests Are Sensitive in the First Week of Infection
In 2020, the standard test used for COVID-19 was a PCR test. Currently, there are two tests used to diagnose an infection with SARS-CoV-2, and the second is the antigen test. One study12 published in August 2021 looked at the accuracy of the rapid antigen test for COVID-19 using a review of publications through April 30, 2021.
They included 133 studies with a total of 112,323 samples, finding the antigen testing was 71.2% sensitive and 98.9% specific. When the antigen tests were compared against a PCR test from the same participant, the researchers found the sensitivity of the test was “markedly better on samples with lower RT-PCR cycle threshold (Ct) values, i.e., <20 (96.5%) and <25 (95.8%), in comparison to those with Ct ≥ 25 (50.7%) and ≥30 (20.9%).”13
This meant when the cycle threshold was 25 or lower on the PCR test and identified a SARS-CoV-2 virus, the sensitivity of the antigen test was also higher. But when the cycle threshold was higher, and likely returning a false positive, the antigen test did not recognize the virus.
Additionally, the antigen testing was more sensitive in the first week after symptoms had occurred than it was later in the illness when the viral load had started to decline. From this data, the researchers concluded that a vast majority of infected people were detected using the test and the antigen rapid tests “have a high utility for diagnostic purposes in the early phase of disease.”14
A second meta-analysis15 of 8,624 participants published in November 2021, found rapid antigen testing had a pooled sensitivity of 79% and specificity of 100%. If the antigen test was administered within the first seven days of symptoms when the viral load was highest, the sensitivity rose dramatically to 95% and the specificity remained at 100%.
COVID-19 Has Been a Pandemic of Positive Tests
As NIAID director Dr. Anthony Fauci described in December 2021,16 the PCR test identifies genetic material from the virus, whether that material is “replication competent” or not. In other words, the PCR test will identify fragments of the viral genetic material even when a whole virus is not present.
While CDC director Dr. Rochelle Walensky says that the PCR test is “the most sensitive test that we can do,”17 Fauci said that the PCR measures viral particles that may not be replicating. Additionally, he called this being “infected,” saying:18
“So although the PCR is good to tell you if you [are infected], but the very fact that it’s positive for, as the CDC director said, several days and even weeks later, it doesn’t give you any indication of whether or not you are transmissible.
And I think that’s the understandable confusion that people have about testing, saying whether you’re infected or not versus are you infected plus transmissible. The only way you could tell if it’s transmissible [is] if you can show that there really is live replication virus in you.”
It appears that Fauci is saying that dead viral particles found by the PCR test do not mean that you were once infected, but in fact that you are infected. Even though Fauci makes the differentiation between inactive and reproductive viruses, the concepts are not interchangeable in terms of infectivity and transmissibility.
You can have a nonreproductive virus in your body, but you will not get sick from it, and you cannot spread it to others. It is not replicating. During a separate interview with ABC News in December 2021, Walensky indicated that people who have symptoms and a negative antigen test should get a PCR test to determine if the symptoms are related to COVID.
However, since the PCR test measures minute viral particles that are possibly not replicating and the antigen tests are sensitive and specific in the first week an individual is symptomatic, it’s difficult to imagine that a secondary PCR test is an accurate measure of a current infection.
Testing Used to Create Fear
These data indicate that antigen tests, when administered within the first five to seven days of symptoms, can identify a SARS-CoV-2 infection. It appears to be more reasonable to identify individuals who are highly infectious, whether with COVID-19 or flu, to help reduce transmission to a vulnerable part of the population.
However, the CDC has not used testing in this manner. As they have revealed with the December 27, 2021, illogical change to protocol,19 this public health agency wants you to believe it took nearly two years to realize that the PCR test was identifying dead viral debris and could not identify an active infection.
Unfortunately, this two-year debacle has meant that Americans have spent an unnecessary amount of time in self-isolation, which had implications for the financial structure and health of communities.
It is also important to remember that the PCR test only looks for a specific sequence of the RNA virus after the sample has been amplified. The test will give a positive result if it finds a small fragment, even if it was there weeks ago and you have no infection. This has allowed the CDC and NIAID to amplify the number of cases, even when those individuals were not sick or transmitting the virus to others.
The increasing number of “cases” may have been one strategy used to convince an unwilling public of the necessity to vaccinate with an unproven genetic therapy shot. According to US News & World Reports, the states with the greatest number of fully vaccinated individuals are on the upper east coast, with Vermont and Rhode Island topping 80%. On the low end of the scale, Wyoming and Alabama record just over 50% fully vaccinated.20
Accidental exposure to sodium azide or ProClin stabilizer in the at-home antigen testing kits is another hurdle in what has become a never-ending series of events designed to divide the world so the technocratic elite can attempt to conquer, wiping out any vestige of freedom and free thought from society.
Why such a caustic and dangerous chemical is needed in test kits sent into homes where children and pets are the norm, is anyone’s question. It is yet one more way of using testing to support the narrative that SARS-CoV-2 is to be feared and dreaded.