Tainted sanitizers and bootleg booze are poisoning people

Hassanian-Moghaddam says that even young children began showing up in hospitals with methanol poisoning, having been given contaminated alcohol by their worried parents in the hopes that it would prevent the coronavirus.Iran isn’t alone. Disruptions from COVID-19 have made adulterated ethanol even more common, which has led to a spike in methanol poisoning, both in bottom-shelf liquor and in products like hand sanitizer.“Many of the alcohols on the market were contaminated,” Hassanian-Moghaddam says of the situation in Iran, “and there was no shortage of people eager to buy cheap alcohol.”Methanol and ethanol are chemical kissing cousins. Over time, it can starve cells of the oxygen and energy they need, which is a major problem for power-hungry optic nerves, leaving many methanol poisoning victims with permanent blindness.The breakdown of methanol also creates an imbalance in the tightly regulated levels of acids and bases in the body, explains Frank Edwards, an emergency room physician at Arnot Ogden Medical Center in Elmira, New York.“In a case of methanol poisoning, that imbalance is created by the buildup of formic acid,” he says.Although basic blood tests can often provide clues to methanol poisoning, making the diagnosis isn’t easy. By mixing methanol into the liquor, you would be able to sell much more alcohol and make much more money from it,” Hovda says.The issue drew media attention in recent years after tourists traveling abroad in Indonesia, Mexico, and the Dominican Republic became ill or died after drinking contaminated alcohol. This makes adulterated alcohol a major problem in places like Iran, according to Hassanian-Moghaddam.Despite this, no country routinely collects data on the number of methanol poisoning cases, due in large part because it mainly affects the most impoverished and marginalized citizens, many of whom also binge drink, Hovda says.