Just in case, those with small children please read

[irnsrgn]

This should serve as a warning that nearly all cleaning supplies are
(at best) harmful to our children (and adults).


Subject: Fatal hand sanitizer




Apparently this is true.....pass along.....


I looked this up on Snopes.com and found that it is TRUE. There are 2
stories on the snopes site. One of the 2 is below.
Urban Legends Reference Pages: Hand Sanitizer Alcohol Poisoning

Please pass this on to anyone who has or works with children.

Ok. I don't know where to begin because the last 2 days of my life have
been such a blur. Yesterday, My youngest daughter Halle who is 4, was
rushed to the emergency room by her father for being severely lethargic
and incoherent. He was called to her school by the school secretary for
being "very VERY sick." He told me that when he arrived that Halle was
barely sitting in the chair. She couldn't hold her own head up and when
he
looked into her eyes, she couldn't focus them.
He immediately called me after he scooped her up and rushed her to the
ER.
When we got there, they ran blood test after blood test and did x-rays,
every test imaginable. Her white blood cell count was normal, nothing
was
out of the ordinary. The ER doctor told us that he had done everything
that he could do so he was sending her to Saint Francis for further
test.
Right when we were leaving in the ambulance, her teacher had come to
the
ER and after questioning Halle's classmates, we found out that she had
licked hand sanitizer off her hand. Hand sanitizer, of all things. But
it
makes sense. These days they have all kinds of different scents and
when
you have a curious child, they are going to put all kinds of things in
their mouths.
When we arrived at Saint Francis, we told the ER doctor there to check
her
blood alcohol level, which, yes we did get weird looks from it but they
did it. The results were her blood alcohol level was 85% and this was 6
hours after we first took her. There's no telling what it would have
been
if we would have tested it at the first ER.
Since then, her school and a few surrounding schools have taken this
out
of the classrooms of all the lower grade classes but what's to stop
middle
and high schoolers too? After doing research off the internet, we have
found out that it only takes 3 squirts of the stuff to be fatal in a
toddler. For her blood alcohol level to be so high was to compare
someone
her size to drinking something 120 proof. So please PLEASE don't
disregard
this because I don't ever want anyone to go thru what my family and I
have
gone thru. Today was a little better but not much. Please send this to
everyone you know that has children or are having children. It doesn't
matter what age. I just want people to know the dangers of this.
Thank you

Urban Legends Reference Pages: Hand Sanitizer Alcohol Poisoning

[RBrown]

my son cant use that stuff any way he has bad eczema caused by alergys he is alergic to trees grass and tree nuts. if he uses that stuff it stings so bad he will cry his preschool found that out the hard way they have to use the non alcahaul based stuff on him. personaly i dont use any of that stuff i beleve all this anti bactirial stuff has actualy made us sicker. you will not build up immunity to things if you do not come in contact with it. if your imunity isnt being built up by the little things how do you expect to fight off the biger things when they come along.

[pyroguy_3]

Um, this may/probably is not true. While the alcohol used in Germ-x is ethyl alcohol (Hand Sanitizer- Germ-X » Fight Germs With Your Bare Hands «), which is the 'active' component in drinks, an 85% blood alcohol level would be instantaneously fatal. I don't even know if you could get that much alcohol into a body without passing out far before that amount was reached, even if it was possible it would more than likely be vomited out before the majority could get into the blood. The legal limit is 0.08%, and 85% would be a .85 blood alcohol content. This kid would have had to have a huge glob of sanitizer in their hands and just drank it to get that drunk. So, the moral of this story is to watch your kid when they are using potentially harmful substances.

[Bear]

Blood alcohol over .3 is possibly deadly and .40 and over is most likely deadly so a .85 in a child would definitely end in death. However you cant equate ethyl alcohol with beer, wine or hard liquor as it is two different things. ethyl alcohol will make you sick in small doses( can cause blindness coma, death in larger doses). also considering ethyl alcohol is like acetone and naptha in that it evaporates extremely quickly so the danger is limited mainly due to the ingestion of it directly from a bottle(purell in this case).

It is common sense to keep stuff like this away from very young children. However it seems like in the world anymore common sense is like wrought iron- was everywhere up until a short time ago and now you could spend years searcing for it and come up with nada.

Sean

[jimmy seale]

i agree bear-and God will look over the child,jimmy

[Ten Hammers]

"Anti Bacterial " is a selling point only. Good hand scrubbing with soap and hot water ( read one minute or more ) is the key. I have 3 grown kids and 5 grandkids. We have a hand cleaner at work that is labeled "heavy and medium duty" for all the whiners that don't think they need the heavy duty stuff ( company obviously picked up on the need and labeled accordingly ). Same cleaner, just labeling. Our world is getting stranger all the time. Does antibacterial bar soap kill bugs ( Dial ) ? Yes it does.

[ThomasPowers]

Bear I think you are confusing ethyl with methyl; methyl is the wood alcohol that is tied in with blindness. Ethyl is the stuff people drink.

[Thomas Dean]

Yes this is true, unfortunately. check it out : http://www.snopes.com/medical/toxins/sanitizer.asphere

[Bear]

Hi thomas and all,
I was probably a little vague in my wording. sorry. Ethyl alcohol is also rubbing alcohol(which is poisonous) and is also in drinks. While this case is true an 0.85 BAL would have killed the child long before she ever got to the hospital. It also does not say how much she ate and most likely the case ( like the 0.85 bal) was blown out of proportion. Most children are fine with having this around just very young ones shouldnt be unsupervised with it(they think it smells good so it must taste good). There are many more products in most houses that are far more hazardous to children.


Sean

[johnny99]

Several years ago, my son who was about five decided to treat himself and his three year old sister to a full bottle of flinstones chewable candy (vitamins). after getting a call from my wife, and rushing to meet them at the hospital, where both the kids were having their stomachs pumped. The doctor told us that they were worried about, I kid you not. Iron poisoniing!

[Ten Hammers]

I guess I'll just say again that if you want to stay healthy, wash your hands in warm soapy water ( minute or more scrub ). Teach kids to do this. Good habits start young.

[irnsrgn]

Johnny, Iron is good for your body, but too much can damage the bodies Organs to the point that death occurs. I am a consistant blood donor as I have mild HEMOCHROMATOSIS which I keep under control by donating blood. Too much iron in the blood is a real problem. I am old but sure don't need any Geritol.

[ThomasPowers]

Rubbing alcohol can be denatured ethyl alcohol or it can be isopropyl alcohol---very different! I use the isopropyl stuff every 3 days as a skin prep for my insulin pump set---got into the habbit of reading the labels since finding out what works best is an individual process.

When I worked in the oilpatch as a logging geologist I had a co-worker that tried to live a sterile life out there---only ate out of cans, used bottled water for washing, etc. He was always under the weather with intestinal complaints while the rest of us who just lived "normally" had few indeed. Soap and water has always worked for me and I brought up my kids to not be afraid of dirt!

[pyroguy_3]

Just thought I would clear this up, it's kind of my thing (chem major and whatnot) Ethyl alcohol ( with nomenclature of ethanol-C2H6O, also) is the main constituent in all alcoholic beverages which are consumed. Rubbing alcohol, as ThomasPowers said, is either denatured ethyl alcohol or isopropyl alcohol. Denaturing alcohol almost always means adding methyl alcohol (methanol- CH4O) to make it undrikable. Methanol is derived from woods, hence the name wood alcohol. Isopropyl alcohol (isopropanol- C3H8O) is the more common rubbing alcohol. It is more likey that the ethanol in hand sanitizer was denatured to prevent people from getting drunk off of it. Therefore, if a child were to eat hand sanitizer they would in effect be poisoning themselves with wood alcohol. So this story is partly true, and partly false. The underlying story of kid eats sanitizer and gets hurt, versus the .85 BAC. There are also some other constituents of hand sanitizer that aren't too nice, which is why it's a good idea to keep an eye on the kiddies!