Don’t drink hand sanitisers

One letter to the journal describes the case of a 49-year-old US prison inmate who became intoxicated by drinking alcohol-based hand sanitiser. The letter said the inmate was described as becoming "red-eyed, loony and combative" after he was seen to drink from a gallon container of Purell hand sanitiser, CBC News reported.

A second letter describes a 43-year-old alcoholic with mysterious chest pains who drank hand wash that had isopropyl alcohol from a dispenser in a US hospital washroom.

The authors of the second letter noted that ingesting about 200 millilitres of isopropanol can prove fatal because it depresses the central nervous system and the heart, CBC News reported.

It may be a good idea to change the labels on alcohol-based hand sanitisers, the authors concluded. – (HealthDayNews)

February 2007