The FDA’s constantly-updating list of potentially harmful hand sanitizers has now risen to more than 135 products.
Another U.S.-based manufacturer has now joined the list, too, with Dallas’s Santa Cruz Biotechnology initiating a voluntary recall. Georgia-based SG24 LLC also had to recall its SkinGuard24 All-Day Hand Sanitizer after it was labeled to contain methanol. This, however, could be the case of a mislabeling incident, like the distillery in Tennessee subjected to similar penalties.
If not, however, the presence of methanol poses a hazard. Methanol, otherwise known as wood alcohol, can be toxic if absorbed through the skin, and can be fatal if ingested.
The New York Times reported that 15 people in Arizona and New Mexico were poisoned from drinking hand sanitizer, and four people have actually died. From the Times:
Three of the patients sustained visual impairments, according to the CDC, which said that drinking hand sanitizer can cause methanol poisoning. Methanol is a type of alcohol commonly found in fuel products, antifreeze, industrial solvents and in some preparations of hand sanitizer that federal health officials said is harmful and should not be used.
[…]
It was not immediately clear if any of the people who were poisoned drank the hand sanitizer for its disinfectant properties. The CDC said some adults had consumed it for its alcohol content.
In June, the New Mexico Department of Health reported that in addition to three fatalities, three people were in critical condition and one was permanently blind after ingesting hand sanitizer containing methanol.
4 people died and nearly a dozen others were poisoned after swallowing alcohol-based hand sanitizer, U.S. health officials said https://t.co/ue3QPAkK9e
— The New York Times (@nytimes) August 6, 2020
However, the department clarified that the cases were related to alcohol abuse, rather than recommended use for sanitization. With this in mind, there’s a possibility that some misuse hand sanitizer created by traditional alcohol distilleries, especially if it’s similarly labeled, like Titos vodka, but there’s no reported correlation.
