Hand Sanitizer

Comment: I've always been a naturalist when it comes to dirt. As a child, I lived on an island and played in the mud flats and loved it. I learned a lot about the world from the beaches and the abandoned tuna factory. As an adult, I bought an 1830's old barn to live in and no matter what kind of cleaning you do, it always looks old and dirty. "Bath before bed" was my only insistence for my kids, because I felt they should not get into bed dirty. Otherwise, I didn't care how dirty they got. As a result, they never got sick; they rarely get sick now.

I associate illness with poor immune systems that have been encouraged because of a too sterile life. Children's lives should match children. Children are not part of the decor - they're lives, and lives are not sterile. Keeping children spic and span seems a little like Jenetta Michaels. Jenetta lived up the street from me on the island. She was overweight from a failure to play vigorously like the rest of us. She sat all day in her spotless house playing the piano in her light pink organdy dress and tell tale mary janes. Her butler even answered the door for her. My mother got mad at me for being the town tramp, so she sent me up to play with Jenetta. It was terrible. It was like being chained to the neck by the piano. Luckily, Jenetta was sick all the time, so I didn't have to go back very often.

At school, we insist the children wash their hands to the elbows with soap and running water. On picnics after swimming, I don't care. On field trips - depends. What about hand sanitizer? Well, I can tell you it does not meet the state requirements for washing hands. Is it better than nothing? You tell me... here's a story:

Yesterday, My youngest daughter Halle who is 4, was rushed to the emergency
room by her father for being severely lethargic and incoherent. He was
called to her school by the school secretary for being very VERY sick.' He
told me that when he arrived that 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 called me after he scooped her up and rushed her to the ER.

When we 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. The ER doctor told us that he had done everything that
he could do so he was sending her to Saint Francis for further tests.

Right when we were leaving in the ambulance, her teacher had come to the ER
and after questioning Halle's classmates, we found out that she had licked
hand sanitizer off her hand. Hand sanitizer, of all things. But it makes
sense. These days they have all kinds of different scents and when you have
a curious child, they are going to put all kinds of things in their mouths.

When we arrived at Saint Francis, we told the ER doctor there to check her
blood alcohol level, which, yes we did get weird looks from it but they did
it. The results were her blood alcohol level was .8 and this was 6 hours
after we first took her. There's no telling what it would have been if we
would have tested it at the first ER.

Since then, her school and a few surrounding schools have taken this out of
the classrooms of all the lower grade classes but what's to stop middle and
high schoolers too? After doing research off the internet, we have found
out that it only takes 3 squirts of the stuff to be fatal in a toddler. For
her blood alcohol level to be so high was to compare someone her size to
drinking something 120 proof.

So please PLEASE don't disregard this because I don't ever want anyone to
go through what my family and I have gone through. Today was a little better but
not much. Please send this to everyone you know that has children or are
having children. It doesn't matter what age.

I just want people to know the dangers of this.

Thank you