LIQUID HAND SANITIZER -- WARNING FOR ALL PARENTS/GRANDPARENTS

LIQUID HAND SANITIZER -- WARNING FOR ALL PARENTS/GRANDPARENTS

This story was verified at : http://www.snopes.com/medical/toxins/sanitizer.asp
This is not a Joke!
LIQUID HAND SANITIZER -- This is a Warning for all parents / grandparents < /SPAN>


Yesterday, my youngest daughter, Halle who is just 4 years old, was rushed to the ER
by her father for being severely lethargic and incoherent in her classroom.
He was called to her school by the school secretary who said that she was
'VERY VERY SICK ' !
He told me that when he arrived at her classroom, Halle was barely sitting in the chair.
She couldn't hold her own head up and when he looked into her eyes, she
couldn't focus them.
He immediately scooped her up and rushed her to the closest ER, and then called me. When he got there, they ran blood test after blood test and did x-rays,

every test imaginable. Her white blood cell count was normal, nothing was
out of the ordinary. When I arrived at the ER, the doctor there told us that he
had done everything that he could do so he was transferring her to Saint Francis
Hospital for further tests.

Right as we were leaving in the ambulance, her teacher arrived at the ER and
told us that after questioning Halle 's classmates, She had found out that our little
girl had licked liquid hand sanitizer off of her hands !!!
Hand sanitizer, of all things. But it makes sense.These days they have all kinds
of different scents and flavors and when you have a curious child, they are going
to put all kinds of things into their mouths.

When we arrived at the Saint Francis' Hospital ER, we told the ER Doctor there to
check her blood alcohol level, and yes we did get weird looks, but they did it.
The results showed her blood alcohol level was 8.5% -- six hours after we first
took her. There's no telling what it would have been if we would have requested
it at the first ER.

Since then, her school and a few surrounding schools have taken the liquid hand
sanitizers out of all the lower grade classes, but what's to stop middle and high
schoolers from ingesting this stuff?
After doing research on the Internet, we found out that it only takes about
3 squirts of the stuff ingested to be fatal to a toddler.
For her blood alcohol level to be so high, it would be like someone her size
drinking120 proof liquor. So PLEASE PLEASE don't disregard this because
we don't ever want another family to go through what ours has gone through.


Please send this to everyone you know who has children
or are planning to have children.
It doesn't matter what age. This could affect anyone of them .


The germ-busting stuff really is top-of-mind right now … school supply lists from around the country are asking parents to send kids back to school this fall with a bottle of hand sanitizer. And there'sTMs good reason: Studies have shown a decrease in the average sick time of students who use hand sanitizers as a part of their hand hygiene regimen (see: American Journal of Infection Control, http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/sites/entrez?cmd=Retrieve&db=PubMed&list_uids=11029132&dopt=Abstract).

To effectively kill 99.99 percent of germs, hand sanitizers like Germ-X and Purell contain 62% ethyl alcohol. In fact, The Centers for Disease Control study shows that in lower percentages of alcohol, hand sanitizers are less effective. (http://www.cdc.gov/ncidod/EID/vol12no03/05-0955.htm)

Next month, Germ-X is introducing an alternative to traditional alcohol-based products. Germ-XÂ Advanced Protection is a new formula that uses active ingredient benzalkonium chloride (the same stuff found in eyewashes and surface cleaners) to kill 99.99 percent of common germs.

Germ-X Advanced Protection may be of interest to those looking for a substitute to alcohol-based hand sanitizers. The foaming hand sanitizer has a light, clean feel and a fresh smell … and, with vitamin E and other moisturizers, it keeps hands soft.

You can find this product (right next to the original Germ-X) for the bargain price of $2.87 at Walmart
This is great news for families with young(er) children even though I've never known anyone who had a child remotely interested in licking their hands after using this product. (the taste is disgusting even by accident) The reassurance that Germ-X has the consumers' safety in mind is what's important.