The Hangover From Hand Sanitizer

When COVID hit, hand sanitizer jumped from hospitals onto every counter and into every car. Shelves emptied. Production exploded as new makers rushed gel out to meet panic demand.

Then testers started opening the bottles.

The Food and Drug Administration built a public “do not use” list for products that failed basic checks.

That table, now frozen and no longer updated as an emergency tracker, grew to 665 entries.

Shoppers were told to match a manufacturer, distributor, or NDC code on the label, and not to use sanitizer from a listed maker.

What the labs found was straightforward product failure. Some gels labeled as ethanol contained wood alcohol (methanol), which is not an allowed ingredient in hand sanitizer.

Others were too weak: the alcohol on the label was not in the bottle at a level that would do the job.

Some used the wrong alcohol (1-propanol). Later tests turned up impurities such as benzene, acetaldehyde, and acetal.

Alcohol-free “antimicrobial” formulas had a different defect: microbial contamination.

In 2020 the agency had loosened manufacturing rules so more firms could fill the shortage.

By mid-summer it was adding failed products to the list as fast as it could test them.

In October 2021 it withdrew those temporary guidances, saying ordinary supply had caught up.

The advice on the same page stayed simple: wash with soap and water when you can. If you cannot, use a sanitizer that actually contains at least 60% ethanol.

Source - https://www.fda.gov/drugs/drug-alerts-and-statements/fda-updates-hand-sanitizers-consumers-should-not-use

The Hangover From Hand Sanitizer