These hand sanitizers will not only kill bacteria on your hands, they could also poison you.
The Food and Drug Administration has updated its growing list of hand sanitizers that contain methanol, a wood alcohol substance that can be toxic when ingested or absorbed through the skin. And what is worse, sometimes the ingredient may not be included in the products.
“The FDA warns consumers and healthcare providers that the agency has seen a sharp increase in hand sanitizer products that are labeled to contain ethanol … but have tested positive for methanol contamination,” the agency wrote. in a post this month, along with a list at the bottom of hand sanitizers that were recalled or voluntarily recalled.
New additions increase the number of dangerous hand sanitizer products from nine to 59.
Although methanol poisoning is frequently associated with contraband liquor, since the coronavirus pandemic, cases have been increasingly associated with ingesting hand sanitizer. Symptoms of methanol poisoning include nausea, vomiting, headache, blurred vision, permanent blindness and seizures, and could lead to coma, nervous system damage and death, the FDA said.
“The agency is aware of adults and children who ingest methanol-contaminated hand sanitizers that have led to recent adverse events such as blindness, hospitalizations and death,” the FDA said in its publication, before warning consumers not to There is “FDA approved” hand sanitizer and any product it claims to be is being fraudulently marketed.
Additionally, the FDA advises that you should not take hand sanitizer under any circumstances. In April, the agency went so far as to ask manufacturers to add denatured alcohol to their products in the name of making them more bitter and therefore less attractive.
The growing list at the bottom of the memo includes 59 entries from 13 different companies.
When the agency began maintaining the list in June, the nine brands of potentially toxic hand sanitizers were made by the same Mexico-based manufacturer, Eskbiochem SA de CV.
If consumers realize that they have unwittingly purchased a hand sanitizer from the warning list, the FDA warns not to “flush or pour these products down the drain,” but instead dispose of them immediately in hazardous waste containers.
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