Hand sanitizers are a must-have during this pandemic to maintain good hand hygiene but not all types of hand sanitizers are helpful. Recently, researchers have warned about the food-flavored sanitizers which don’t really serve the purpose well.
After coronavirus was declared as a public health emergency, health officials were working hard to keep people safe from it. while the research work on medicine development and vaccine is in its trial phases, the general recommendations to protect people from contracting the virus were published. One of these guidelines was to carry and use a hand-sanitizer after touching any public surface or contacting a person.
While there are so many companies making these hand sanitizers, only those with at least 60% or above were chosen to be helpful against the coronavirus. Click here to read the statement from the FDA.
Though, food-flavored sanitizers, in particular, are not safe to be used to save from the coronavirus. The US FDA says that these food-flavored sanitizers give the impression that they are edible because of the food-flavoring thing. But consuming these food-flavored sanitizers is highly poisonous. People who consume these sanitizers often end up being a victim of alcohol poisoning.
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Dr. Stephen Hahn, the commissioner at FDA says that using the food flavors and labeling these sanitizers as food-flavored is like deceiving people. These fragrant hand sanitizers make people believe that they are safe to be consumed because they smell like food. But what they don’t know is that drinking hand sanitizers is directly linked to alcohol poisoning.
FDA has warned all people to pay attention to the products that they are using. If there is a product that looks suspicious or doesn’t just sound right, it is better not to use it.
Dr. Hahn further shared that if these hand sanitizers continue to be packed smelling like food giving the impression that these products may be edible, the threat remains. It is easy to confuse a user into accidentally consuming the alcohol-based hand sanitizer. According to the researchers, 60% of alcohol content is maintained in these sanitizers but 60% alcohol-based sanitizers if ingested can be highly catastrophic.
FDA also presented a recent case which reported that a person bought a product assuming it was a water bottle but it turned out to be a hand sanitizer, explaining how easy it is to manipulate the buyers.
It doesn’t even matter how much sanitizer a person has consumed, the damage works even if he consumes a small portion of these food-flavored hand sanitizers.
And if by any chance, a person consumed a sufficient amount of hand sanitizer, he can even die.
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Based on this information, FDA urges everyone to pay attention to the labels while buying them. Especially if there is a bottle that comes with a food flavoring label or packaging, it is necessary to understand if it is edible or not.
Manufacturers, on the other hand, should be more concerned about packaging and selling their products. Use unclear marketing strategies may take lives which is why this issue should be addressed.
