They're drinking what?
By Alex Shimo - Monday, October 26, 2009 - 45 Comments
Kids seeking a quick high are downing hand sanitizer
The best way to drink hand sanitizer is straight, like whisky, and down it “like a shot,” explains Tyler, a Grade 10 student who lives in Toronto. Undiluted, the alcohol-based liquid tastes a little like “vodka and bug spray,” he adds.
The alarming comment from the 15-year-old mirrors a growing number of news reports about teenagers and children drinking the antiseptic hand-cleaning products. Most hand sanitizers have an alcoholic content between 60 and 90 per cent, which means that even small amounts have led to a number of cases of alcohol poisoning in younger children. That percentage is much higher than even that of most hard liquors, giving it an appeal to kids looking for a quick high, explains Jane Wells, a drama teacher at Toronto’s after-school Care Program. Wells has come to know a lot about this subject: she discovered that a group of eight- and nine-year-olds drank hand sanitizer at school just before she took them on a school walk. When she noticed them acting strange and giggling, they first told her they had been drinking alcohol, but after some probing, confessed it was really the hand cleaner. They told her they’d been enticed by the promise of alcohol “right on the bottle,” she says. Continue…
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The unseen costs of swine flu
By Katie Engelhart - Friday, June 26, 2009 at 12:11 PM - 0 Comments
Manitoba reserve spends money earmarked for students’ laptops on hand sanitizer
Health Canada thought about sending hand sanitizer to northern Manitoba’s flu-stricken aboriginal reserves. In fact, as the flu spread last month, public-health officials came together to debate the issue at length. In the end, their discussion hinged on a single question: whether or not the proposed hand sanitizer should have an alcohol base.
That single question was enough to paralyze the federal government, which ended up waiting weeks before sending supplies to desperate First Nations communities.
By the time government supplies arrived, some communities had already taken matters into their own hands. Chief David Harper of Garden Hill First Nation—whose remote northern reserve reported seven confirmed swine flu cases on Wednesday—says that the province’s sluggishness forced him to take $15,000 out his community’s education fund. “The high-school graduates were going to get laptops,” says Harper. “And we had to use that money for our emergency preparedness.” Money was also skimmed from an account set up to reward each Garden Hill student $50/month for perfect school attendance. This summer, 26 of the 28 Garden Hill students who started school last fall will graduate the year, a significant increase from past years. The money and promises of laptop computers “was to encourage them to move on. And that helped a lot.”
Harper says he asked the province for supplies, but as the weeks passed and no new supplies showed up, he bought masks and hand sanitizer himself. A week after the $15,000 was spent, 2,500 bottles of government-issued hand sanitizer arrived.
Word of Health Canada’s delay was revealed Tuesday, during a Senate probe of the government’s response to the swine flu outbreak on reserves. Health Canada officials apparently hesitated in sending hand sanitizer to First Nations communities because they feared that people there would ingest the alcohol-based liquid. The department also said that supplies were on “back order,” although Harper claims that contact was made with supply companies, who disputed that statement. Grand Chief Sydney Garrioch calls that news “outrageous.” Protesting “the ignorance and possibly some racism expressed toward First Nations People,” Garrioch is calling on the Health Minister to apologize on behalf of her department.
Chief Harper also dismisses concern over alcohol content as “the poorest excuse I ever heard.” Still, the Garden Hill leader acknowledges the potential for hand sanitizer–which can contain up to 70 per cent alcohol–to be abused in his community. Harper says he has heard reports of the substance being boiled, and mixed into a drinkable concoction. He opted for non-alcoholic liquid sanitizer. In Garden Hill, the alcohol-based gel will be used mainly in public places–like the school, when it reopens. And most households will be getting disinfecting wipes, instead of a liquid product.
“First Nations leaders and communities know the intent and uses of hand sanitizer,” Chief Garrioch insisted. Hand sanitizers are especially important on Manitoba’s reserves, given that many households do have access to clean water to wash their hands with.
The inability to supply the most basic supplies to vulnerable remote communities highlights another failing of the federal government’s $1-billion national pandemic plan. And it is that failure, perhaps, that confuses Garden Hill’s Chief Harper the most. He stresses that his community is not being docile. “We’re not getting any help. It doesn’t mean we’re helpless. It’s just that there’s money available for a pandemic situation. So who’s using it?” He is hoping to recover the money lost from his education fund in time to buy laptops for Garden Hill’s high-school graduates.
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Learning to love germs
By Kate Lunau - Tuesday, April 29, 2008 at 5:19 PM - 0 Comments
To all the Purel-toting moms and dads out there: it seems the germs kids…
To all the Purel-toting moms and dads out there: it seems the germs kids pick up at daycare might actually make them healthier. A new study from researchers at the University of California, Berkeley suggests that kids who attend day care or play groups have roughly a 30 per cent reduced risk of developing leukemia.
Most types of childhood leukemia are apparently thought to originate in the womb—but it seems that only about one percent of kids with this mutation actually go on to develop full-blown leukemia by age 15, suggesting a second “hit” is needed during childhood. “We don’t know what all the stressors are after birth,” lead author Patricia Buffler told The Edmonton Journal, but one could be an infection. So, when a kid’s immune system is stimulated at a young age, he or she is “much better able to deal with contact with infectious agents later in life.”
