There is more than 1 way of looking at most things in life. And the statement is not only true for deep philosophical issues but also for small materialistic things in life which we use on a daily basis and their (side) effects which often  go unnoticed unless someone points it out.

I was logging out of Yahoo Mail when I saw this title of Overuse of Hand Sanitizers by Fox News.  You can find the video @ HTTP://cosmos.bcst.yahoo.com/up/player/popup/?cl=16297693 Watching the video kept me thinking of all the times I have seen my friends using these sanitizers to clean their kids’ hands in order to kill germs. But just as the video clearly illustrated – you never know how much of that alcohol aka sanitizer goes into the child’s mouth!!! Be licking hands in a playful act or taking a dollop in the mouth (unsupervised) – the sanitizer can be unsafe. This can be a stark contrast from what the sanitizer commercials have been telling you, but its true! If licked or consumed – the sanitizer that can be used to destroy germs on our hands – can be poisonous & harmful for a child as well as an adult – especially if used in heavy quantities.

I liked the fact that a lot of school districts have made it mandatory to use the sanitizer under adult supervision only. However as parents…as adults it is our responsibility to see what hides within the labels & those tiny letters of specifications under each commercial/product label. In this day & age we have access to multiple resources of information all around us which we can put to good use. We can and should know more about the day-2-day stuff we use & hand it to our naïve children. These products that we get in grocery stores which seem harmless & helpful from a distance – taking another look at them can certainly change the way we use them!

The following part is the result of Internet research that I did while writing down this article. Hand sanitizers that are made anywhere from 60 – 90% alcohol do kill the germs up to 99%. Anywhere less than 60% isn’t effective to do the job they are supposed to do. They come in handy when soap & water aren’t readily available so they do a good job in cleaning your hands and can prevent the spread of hand-to-mouth diseases to a large extent. However they cannot and should not be used as a substitute of actual washing off hands with soap & water on a habitual basis.

I hope that the next time we hand over the sanitizer bottle to our innocent child – we make sure that the hand is not licked or tasted! J