Per IFLscience, a new report from the Center for Disease Control & Prevention (CDCP) found over 62,000 cases of kids under the age of 12 falling ill due to drinking hand sanitizers. 92 percent of these cases involved alcohol based sanitizers which can really tear up your insides more than non alcohol based sanitizers.
When I first heard of this, I assumed these were mostly toddlers who smelled the fruity scents of the sanitizer and thought it might be juice. But this was not always the case.
At least 906 cases were of children between 6 and 12 years old who may have been intentionally misusing the product for the alcohol. Really!?! BuzzFeed news did a report about this same issue back in 2012 where they found that a full bottle of hand sanitizer contains the same alcohol content as 5 hard liquor shots. In the same report, Albuquerque Police Department Deputy Chief Paul Feist said when mixed with 26% Listerine, hand sanitizer makes a “strong cocktail.”
So if you have young ones in the house, you may want to consider keeping only unscented hand sanitizers around. If you are a young but old enough to be reading this, there are lots of other things you can do that are way more fun than whatever buzz you might get off downing a hand sanitizer. Like Nintendo!
Feature image courtesy IFLscience.com
Geeky Daddy 