More Kids Are Ingesting Hand Sanitizer

More kids are getting sick after ingesting hand sanitizer.

Hand sanitizer may provide a good solution for cleaning your hand while on the go, but that doesn’t mean it does not have any dangerous effects, especially if ingested by children. A new report from the US Center for Disease Control and Prevention reveals that an increased number of children keep getting sick after ingesting the alcohol-based solution.

The report showcases more than 70,000 cases were children below the age of 12 years old, ingested liquid hand sanitizer either as an accident or on purpose. Most sanitizers like the popular brand Purell, contain between 60 to 90 percent isopropyl or ethanol alcohol. In order to give them a pleasing aroma, instead of standard alcohol smell, the solution is infused with various other substances which pose additional health risks if ingested.

The CDC report also reveals that children who ingested hand sanitizer exhibit various conditions like eye problems, breathing difficulties, and in some extreme cases falling into a coma. Intentional ingestion of sanitizers is more common for older children with ages between six and twelve years old. Furthermore, kids in this age group also experience more severe adverse health effects than younger children.

According to the researchers, these findings suggests that some kids may deliberately ingest the alcohol-based sanitizers. The situation is getting increasingly worse as the popularity of hand sanitizers continues to grow.

Cynthia Santos, the lead author of the study and a researcher with the CDC National Center for Environmental Health, and her colleagues analyzed children sickness data from 2011 to 2014. They discovered more than 70, 000 cases of hand sanitizer ingestion in that period alone. The vast majority of cases, 91 percent, involved children below the age of five, with around 6, 200 involving kids above six years and up to twelve.

The scientists warn that their findings only include reported cases and that the number of all hand sanitizer ingestion situations by children may be much worse than what it was identified. The researchers recommend that parents keep a close watch on the bottles of hand sanitizers and keep it away from children’s reach. They also recommend avoiding them as much as possible and keep washing their hands the old fashioned way, with soap and water.

Image source: Flickr

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Karen Jackson

Karen Jackson has always been passionate about technology. All the way through high-school she immersed herself in computers and web-design. Her ambitious nature helped her become a pro in Adobe Photoshop only by watching online videos and working with the program herself. This is also the program that she mostly uses in the creation of websites at her work-place. Technological innovation and gadgets that push the boundaries of what we are comfortable with have always fascinated her, so expect to see some weird gadget reviews coming from her.