I could not believe my eyes today as I read this email circulating the Internet about how hand sanitizers, like the kind used in my kids' pre school, can poison children. As verified on Snopes.com and TruthorFiction.com:"Four-year old Girl Intoxicated From Hand Sanitizer-Truth! |
| Summary of the eRumor: The author of the email says her 4-year old daughter ate hand sanitizer at pre-school and was rushed to the hospital with potentially deadly alcohol intoxication. |
| The Truth: The story is true, although with one glaring factual error. According to a Fox 23 Tulsa television interview with her parents, Matt and Lacey Butler, Little Halle was in a pre-kindergarten class at Okmulgee Primary School in Okmulgee, Oklahoma when a teacher did what seemed to be right, gave Halle some hand sanitizer to clean her hands before eating lunch. Instead of rubbing it in, however, Halle ate it. She licked it from her hand. Shortly afterwards her behavior was alarming enough that she was taken to a local hospital. Matt Butler says that when he arrived at the emergency room, his daughter was leaning against a wall, that her eyes would not focus, and she could not walk. Doctors determined that she was intoxicated. The eRumor says her blood alcohol level was 85 percent, which nobody would survive so that figure is obviously wrong. The writer may have meant to say .85 percent. Hand sanitizers have an alcohol level of more than 60 percent. Hard liquor, by comparison, is 40 percent alcohol while most beers are less than 5 percent alcohol. Unlike other poisons and alcoholic beverages, however, most hand sanitizers are easily accessible to children and most of us would not think about the danger. |
Let me put it like this, would you want your preschool, passing around a bottle of Jack Daniels for your kid to wash their hands with? And JD is less toxic than hand sanitizer! In addition, according to the FDA, hand sanitizers are not as effective as soap and water in killing germs and sanitizer should not replace hand washing. So why in the world would the preschools pass around bottles of this poison for the kids to put on themselves as they please. Oh, and not to mention that the skin is the largest organ of the body and it absorbs the alcohol through the skin!
UPDATE: Allen Porter, President of Drinking and Driving.org has written in with some more educated comments on this post:
"Death sets in at a blood alcohol content (BAC) of .50 which is half of
one percent. so the numbers are indeed way off. But a 40 pound body
would not need to ingest much alcohol to get very drunk. Clearly these
wipes should be kept away from children who would put them in their
mouths.
The good news is that alcohol doesn't enter the bloodstream very
effectively through the skin. One would have to soak in it for a while
to see any effects.
If people could get drunk by soaking their hands in vodka, they would
do it because their vodka would last a very long time that way.
Putting it in the mouth, however, is very different and it sounds like
these products simply DO NOT belong in a preschool environment."
Death sets in at a blood alcohol content (BAC) of .50 which is half of one percent. so the numbers are indeed way off. But a 40 pound body would not need to ingest much alcohol to get very drunk. Clearly these wipes should be kept away from children who would put them in their mouths.
The good news is that alcohol doesn't enter the bloodstream very effectively through the skin. One would have to soak in it for a while to see any effects.
If people could get drunk by soaking their hands in vodka, they would do it because their vodka would last a very long time that way.
Putting it in the mouth, however, is very different and it sounds like these products simply DO NOT belong in a preschool environment.
This is just a shame. However, parents daycare providers don't need to use sanitizer, and instead check out Germy Wormy Germ Awareness for Germ Transportation Vehicles ages 2 -7. It is a fun, safe, drug and chemical- free way to teach kids how to both avoid AND keep from passing germs. I know because my daughter learned it in daycare, and we no longer play the "pass the germs" game anymore! Parents, schools and daycare centers are raving about it!
http://www.germywormy.com
Give kids a PLACE to give their germs to, instead of YOU!