
FDA Updates on Hand Sanitizers with Methanol - keehun
https://www.fda.gov/drugs/drug-safety-and-availability/fda-updates-hand-sanitizers-methanol
======
elliekelly
Could you use the moonshine test on hand sanitizer? If it burns blue then you
know it’s ethanol and if it burns yellow it’s methanol? I’m not familiar with
the other ingredients in hand sanitizer so I don’t know if this would work (so
don’t try it at home!) I’m only asking out of curiosity.

~~~
kurthr
That's an interesting idea... but think that's reversed.

[https://www.reddit.com/r/chemicalreactiongifs/comments/5cw7z...](https://www.reddit.com/r/chemicalreactiongifs/comments/5cw7zj/burning_pure_methanol_left_and_pure_ethanol_right/)

You're more likely to detect metallic or other organic contaminants which are
likely (moisturizers etc) in sanitizers of both sorts. Even the effect shown
above only shows up in an oxygen restricted environment (like the bucket
above) due to the extra O2 the ethanol carbon needs to burn clean. You won't
see that if you put it in a spoon where there's plenty of air. Any other
carbon/sodium compounds are likely to show up and orange/red.

[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3jfXjG9q19Y](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3jfXjG9q19Y)

Even dangerous metals like Lead (Pb) are hard to detect with simple flame test
and a very pure flame.

[https://images.app.goo.gl/k8rSHZ4QtGR57Ca47](https://images.app.goo.gl/k8rSHZ4QtGR57Ca47)

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phyzome
I saw a paper indicating that ethanol and isopropanol are not readily absorbed
through the skin, but can enter as fumes -- enough to show up on an (overly
sensitive) drug screen.

I would expect methanol might be similar, although it _is_ quite a bit
smaller. However, I wasn't able to find any information on this. Any sources?

~~~
jpeloquin
From [1]: "In human metabolism of methanol, given its physical and chemical
properties, high skin absorption is expected. Methanol penetration is
predicted at 2.0 mg/cm2/h (logP = −0.77). Skin absorption of methanol vapor is
another primary exposure route in terms of respiratory exposure."

I had a hard time finding dermal exposure thresholds for adverse effects. Oral
intakes associated with severe acute effects were easier to find and could be
used to estimate the effects of dermal intake. The smallest systemic oral
intake threshold I saw was 3–11 g: "An oral intake of 3.16–11.85 g/person of
pure methanol could cause blindness."

From those values, I think you're probably right; at least, death or blindness
from dermal exposure to methanol seems unlikely. But the thresholds for less
severe symptoms and the relevant intake thresholds for symptoms from chronic
exposure are unclear to me.

[1]
[https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC5625597/](https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC5625597/)

~~~
tgsovlerkhgsel
Hand surface area is often given as 1% of body surface area (1.5-2 m^2), i.e.
150-200 cm^2, unclear if one or both hands but I assume one. I've also found
claims of 400 cm^2 for one hand.

Methanol penetration is predicted at 2.0 mg/cm2/h" would imply that assuming
two hands of 800 cm^2 total, exposed to methanol "hand sanitizer" for 5
minutes, would absorb 133 mg of methanol.

I think the skin absorption issue is a red herring and the real issue is that
people keep drinking it.

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superkuh
It looks like every single example they found with methanol contamination is
imported from Mexico. I wonder if that's just because they only started there
or if it's not a problem with imports from other regulatory domains.

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skwb
If I recall correctly, most of the moonshine blindness was not due to improper
distillation technique (i.e. not cutting your distillation head), but rather
that methanol was often used to dilute ethyl alcohol.

~~~
toomanybeersies
Most fermented alcohol doesn't contain a significant amount of methanol to
begin with, fermented fruit being the exception. After distilling you can
usually drink the heads with no risk of methanol poisoning. You'll still get a
nasty hangover from aldehydes and higher alcohols if you do, but it won't kill
you.

The majority of methanol poisoning cases are where illegal spirits have been
deliberately adulterated with industrial methanol (most likely with denatured
alcohol, which is still 90%+ ethanol) to increase profits.

~~~
elil17
The US government once methylated alcohol to try to convince people to follow
prohibition.

[https://www.vox.com/2014/8/8/5975605/alcohol-prohibition-
poi...](https://www.vox.com/2014/8/8/5975605/alcohol-prohibition-poison)

~~~
refurb
Good old Vox finding nefarious deeds in everything.

The gov't still "poisons" alcohol today. It's called "denatured" alcohol and
there are a bunch of "poisons" added like diesel, methanol, Bitrex, etc.

It's done because the gov't wants their alcohol tax.

~~~
himinlomax
You're just being stupid. Denaturing agents are used to make the product
unpalatable. They may be mildly toxic, but they are so disgusting that users
typically don't absorb much of it.

Methanol, on the other hand, is not just more toxic but also reportedly tastes
better than than ethanol. As such it _encourages_ people to drink it. Using it
to punish illicit alcohol drinkers is just plain evil.

~~~
refurb
Wrong. They still sell “methylated spirits” today, where the only adulterant
is methanol.

[https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Denatured_alcohol](https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Denatured_alcohol)

And no, they didn’t used methanol to encourage people to drink it - that’s
just silly.

Not everything is a conspiracy.

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analog31
Well, this kinda answers the question I had, which was whether you could use
denatured alcohol to sanitize things. Because, when the crisis started and you
couldn't get isopropanol, you could still get denatured alcohol by the gallon.
But I assumed it had this hazard and didn't buy any.

~~~
korethr
It depends upon exactly how the alcohol has been denatured. I'm of the
understanding there's a couple ways: lacing with methanol to make it
poisonous, or lacing with bittering agents powerful enough to make even the
most desperate alcoholic spit the stuff out reflexively. But, not knowing
which method is in use, probably better to avoid using denatured alcohol for
sanitation purposes.

~~~
analog31
True. The cans of denatured alcohol at Home Depot said methanol (or methylated
spirits, whatever). But that's a sample size of one. They were also labeled
"alcohol fuel" or something like that.

I'm not sure what legitimate purpose ethanol serves at a home improvement
store. To improve my home, ethanol has to be drinkable. ;-)

~~~
trhway
>I'm not sure what legitimate purpose ethanol serves at a home improvement
store.

because how toxic alcohols other than ethanol, to humans and pets, i never
bring other stuff to home. For cleaning/sanitizing purposes there is currently
a bottle of Smirnoff among cleaning supplies under the kitchen sink. Yes, i'm
Russian and say 25 years ago back there i'd consider such usage of good vodka
a capital crime :)

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userbinator
Not being familiar with these brands at all, I wonder if they were created
during the pandemic or existed before; and if the latter, did they always
contain methanol and were now just discovered, or recently started to be
adulterated due to ethanol shortages?

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nikolay
Is there a simple litmus test, for example?

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dawnerd
Unless I'm missing something the last they updated was about three weeks ago.

~~~
rwbhn
Sorting by date I see 2 additions to the table on 2020-07-21.

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mtgp1000
I had no idea that all those stereotypes about moonshine turning people blind
and/or crazy were real - I guess methanol alcohol was a common enough
contaminant in bootleg alcohol during prohibition. And wherever they make
moonshine these days, though I imagine even backwoods people are wiser these
days.

Edit: it's complicated: [https://www.pastemagazine.com/drink/alcohol-
history/prohibit...](https://www.pastemagazine.com/drink/alcohol-
history/prohibition-history-methanol-poisoning-bootlegging-alcohol/#how-
methanol-likely-killed-thousands-during-prohibition)

~~~
082349872349872
Distillation is a way for farmers to transform crops into a denser form with
arbitrary shelf life. This means that if they think local spot markets are
offering a raw deal, they have the options of both temporal and spatial
arbitrage.

In my country, people with stills on trailers often come around to villages to
help the farmers with excess crops, and home distillation is legal. I haven't
heard of problems with CH₃OH.

Even in russia distillation has been legal for all of this century. I would
not be surprised if a fair amount of the booze mentioned in "Выпил С2H5OH /
Сел на «Ниву» Ростсельмаш" was homemade. (who needs a fancy
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Local_currency](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Local_currency)
when one can express appreciation for favours in bottles?)

For that matter, in china, 白酒 is discouraged but legal.

Anyone know what the north korean line may be? If they're a repressive state
on the order of iran or the soviet union, they might ban home distillation.

(Bonus tracks from "Darkside of The Moonshine":
[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4zLMsvaRWhY](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4zLMsvaRWhY)
)

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x87678r
Surely this is fine if you dont drink it. I'm not convinced toddlers would
like the taste anyway.

~~~
vikramkr
Toxicity for methanol also comes through skin absorption and inhalation of
vapors. The effect you're concerned about there is what happens when your body
breaks down the molecule - formaldehyde is an intermediate metabolite and is
pretty toxic.

