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By Liam Verster
Poison Prevention Week

Accidental poisoning cases from hand sanitizers, cleaning products see spike in Alberta in 2020

Mar 22, 2021 | 1:22 PM

As more people stocked up on hand sanitizer and household cleaners to help stop the spread of COVID-19 in 2020, the number of cases where the products accidentally poisoned Albertans rose significantly.

The University of Alberta’s Injury Prevention Centre compared instances of the products poisoning people in 2020 compared to 2019, and found calls to Alberta Poison and Drug Information Services (PADIS) increased by 73 per cent on a year-over-year basis.

Kathy Belton, the Associate Director of the Injury Prevention Centre, says the data shows that all age groups were included in this increase.

“Adolescents 13 to 19 years of age experienced the largest percentage of increase, and that was 157 per cent. Seniors over the age of 60 had an 89 per cent increase,” says Belton.

The research did not differentiate between cleaning products and hand sanitizers when it came to the overall call figures, but there were some specific data points collected during the research.

“When we look at hand sanitizer calls that (adolescent) group went up by 867 per cent.”

She says PADIS does not collect data on the circumstances of calls, so there was no way to tell if those cases involved intentional ingestion or not.

Hand sanitizer and cleaning product poisoning can occur from ingestion, inhalation, or contact with the eyes.

Belton says there were more opportunities to accidentally ingest hand sanitizers over the last year, as many breweries, distilleries, and other businesses changed their model to produce sanitizers.

She says some companies have been packaging hand sanitizer in beer cans, and wine and liquor bottles, which can make people think the products are not as harmful as they actually are, and can lead to accidental ingestion.

“The beer can especially, if you’ve been drinking and you see a beer can, are you really going to stop and look at the label, or are you just going to pop that open and drink that.”

She adds that’s not the most troubling packaging problem they’ve seen in the past year.

“One of the craziest things that we saw over the course of the past two years is hand sanitizer was actually put into one of those squeeze pouches that baby food comes in nowadays,” said Belton.

“That is very alarming because if you’ve got a little toddler, a toddler’s not going to know that’s hand sanitizer, so we need to increase the safe storage of those products.”

Belton says it’s not just hand sanitizer that needs to be safely stored, but all cleaning products, especially when there are children in the house.

Belton says the symptoms for these types of poisonings can vary.

“For hand sanitizer (poisoning) it will lower blood sugar; slow your heart rate and your breathing; and a child (who’s been exposed) may appear drunk.

“For the cleaning products it will be watery eyes; mouth pain; chocking, gagging and difficulty breathing; and vomiting.”

She says hand sanitizers have a higher level of alcohol, which causes the poisoning.

Anyone who becomes poisoned with these products should call the PADIS emergency line at 1-800-332-1414.

March 21-27 is also Poison Prevention Week, and Belton says while these products are good at slowing the spread of the novel coronavirus, people still need to be careful with them; supervise children when using hand sanitizer; keep the products out of the reach of children; have them safely stored; always read and follow instructions; and do not mix products as they may cause burns and produce toxic fumes.

by Liam Verster