
Mounting poisonings, blindness, deaths as toxic hand sanitizers flood market - sohkamyung
https://arstechnica.com/science/2020/07/mounting-poisonings-blindness-deaths-as-toxic-hand-sanitizers-flood-market/
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interestica
I've had to walk into grocery stores where they force you to use a squirt of
their unlabeled bottle. I've seen a place use an "anti-microbial" liquid that
contained no alcohol at all (I was intrigued by it and found that it used
benzalkonium chloride ...and I'm not sure it's at all effective against the
covid-19 virus). It's like we're at the point of hand-sanitizer-theatre. I
think an earlier shortage meant that businesses were just purchasing whatever
that could get their hands on.

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xkcd-sucks
Are these people drinking it? Everyone in my grad school chem lab washed hands
with methanol to no ill effect

~~~
sohkamyung
> Are these people drinking it?

Apparently, yes [1]: "The agency is aware of adults and children ingesting
hand sanitizer products contaminated with methanol that has led to recent
adverse events including blindness, hospitalizations and death."

[1] [https://www.fda.gov/drugs/drug-safety-and-
availability/fda-u...](https://www.fda.gov/drugs/drug-safety-and-
availability/fda-updates-hand-sanitizers-methanol)

~~~
bzb3
I'm a huge supporter of Darwin.

