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Inmate gets drunk on hand sanitizer
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BALTIMORE (Map, News) - Prison guards and inmates are encouraged to use hand sanitizer liberally to prevent the spread of infection.
“It’s actually quite effective at killing bacteria and more effective at killing viruses than other types of hand cleaners,” said Christopher Welsh, a University of Maryland addictions psychiatrist. On the other hand, sanitizers contain the same alcohol compound as restricted drinks such as beer and vodka.
However, this October, a Maryland inmate took those instructions out of context and began drinking from a gallon jug of sanitizer, health officials say. The sanitizer included more than 70 percent ethyl alcohol by volume.
“He appeared intoxicated — slurred speech, making grandiose statements about the meaning of life,” Suzanne Doyon, medical director of the Maryland Poison Control Center in Baltimore said Wednesday.
The 49-year-old inmate, who was not identified, was treated for alcohol poisoning. His blood alcohol level topped .33 percent, Doyon and Welsh wrote in a letter published in the New England Journal of Medicine today.
“We’re primarily concerned about at-risk patients,” Doyon said. “Patients who intentionally do this to get drunk, especially those hospitalized, institutionalized or in rehabilitation or nursing care facilities.”
There is also a concern about middle and high school students drinking hand sanitizer to “be cool,” Welsh said. “It’s important for parents and school personnel to be aware that it is happening.”
He suggested parents treat hand sanitizer like any other potentially harmful household product, including storing out of reach of small children and instructing children not to drink from it.
The Poison Center gets a handful of calls each year about young people intoxicated by hand sanitizers, mouthwash and flavoring extracts, Doyon said. “You can drink enough to get alcohol poisoning and die.”
Alcohol-based hand sanitizers are recommended for institutional use by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, the Joint Commission on Accreditation of Healthcare Organizations and the Federal Bureau of Prisons. They are widely used by individual consumers across the country under names including Avagard D, Avant, Nexcare, Prevacare, Germ-X and Purell.
A spokesman for the Maryland Department of Public Safety and Corrections could not immediately comment on the October case or any preventive measures taken since.
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Examiner Reader said:
I know how it works. Creatine ups ATP which inturn stops the hyperpolarizing of brain cells by leptin. MTGDGW
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Examiner Reader said:
Your alcohol facts are not quite straight. You mentioned Avant Hand Sanitizer- it has denatured alcohol. The denaturing process adds a bitter agent- it make sit taste horrible- definitely not a vodka type drink. That is why alcohol is denatured- to avoid abuse like this. It will likely make you vomit.
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Examiner Reader said:
Former Minneapolis Fire Chief: A First Responder in I-35W Bridge Collapse; Coordinates Helping Hand Contribution of Soapopular Hand Sanitizers For EMS Workers For Immediate Release Minneapolis, MN, Aug 8, 2007-- Former Minneapolis Fire Department Chief Bonnie Bleskachek, an embattled hero to many in the Minneapolis community, hasn't allowed recent personal controversy to stand in the way of helping Minnesota citizens in times of crisis. Since the August 1 catastrophe first occurred, Bleskachek has been working tirelessly by coordinating volunteer and emergency supply logistics, and she was the first to respond to an unsolicited call from a Connecticut company offering to contribute a shipment of Soapopular, a new, alcohol-free hand sanitizer, for emergency workers at the disaster scene.
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Examiner Reader said:
Hand-Sanitizer=Alcohol Poisoning.. As inane as the subject might seam, the exponential growth in the use of hand sanitizer products over the past few years has lead to an ever-increasing number of alcohol-poisoning instances--and too many within school/educational settings. Most recent report was two weeks ago in Hartford CT, where second grader, overloaded her hands from a Purell bottle on her teachers desk ,then licked it off--and was soon rushed to Yale University Hospital and diagnosed with alchohol poisoning. Thank goodness that some new manufacturers, including Soapopular--which offers a full line of Alcohol-FREE hand sanitizing products, are now getting retailers to put their products on their shelves. Soapopular, which is Canada's leading brand in the alcohol-free segment, made its debut last week here in the US.
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