President Trump and some of his supporters are claiming authorities did not use tear gas against people in a crackdown outside the White House this week. An APFactCheck finds evidence that they did.
for riot-control agents and cites pepper spray as one kind. In the unrest near the White House, officers shot plastic balls with pepper powder from what looked like souped-up paintball guns, and dispersed other compounds in a stinging fog.
The book also says riot-control agents are “popularly referred to as ‘tear gas’ or ‘pepper spray.’” It says they may be combined with an explosive substance in grenades, released in a smoke of particles from handheld devices or sprayed in a solution. The disabling effects of tear gas are designed to be short-lived, but the CDC says prolonged exposure “may lead to long-term effects such as eye problems including scarring, glaucoma, and cataracts, and may possibly cause breathing problems such as asthma.”in 2009 cites riot-control agents and tear gas interchangeably. It says tear gas is something of a misnomer, because the agents tend not to be gaseous and modern compounds can affect a wider variety of organs as well as the eyes, lungs and digestive tract that are historically the targets of tear gas. Dr. Sven-Eric Jordt researches tear gas agents and chemical exposure injuries in his lab at the Duke University School of Medicine’s Integrated Toxicology and Environmental Health Program. He said newer compounds, which may have been used in the “pepper ball” projectiles deployed at the protest, might or might not fit a traditional definition of tear gas but are as potent and come with scant research on their safety. Any difference is semantic, he said. “There’s been very little research on tear gas being done in the United States,” he said, and “no research backing up the use levels that are deployed now.” Jordt said the two main categories of crowd-clearing irritants — known as CS and OC — both activate the pain-sensing nervous system sharply, which in turn can make the body more susceptible to a virus. “I’m just very concerned this might increase the likelihood of infection” in the coronavirus pandemic, he said, or trigger more extreme reactions in people who have the virus but are not showing symptoms. “To use these highly irritating agents on protesters is not a good idea,” he said. “It’s really shocking that it is used to that extent.”Find AP Fact Checks at http://apnews.com/APFactCheck
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