WASHINGTON - The U.S. Food and Drug Administration issued an "import alert" on all alcohol-based hand sanitizers from Mexico after the agency found that 84% of sampled products were not in compliance with safety regulations — and more than half were found to contain poisonous ingredients.
Several deaths have been tied to some of the products. From April through December 2020, the agency collected 112 samples of alcohol-based hand sanitizer products imported from Mexico.
Of these products, 94 (84%) were not in compliance with the FDA’s safety standards — and 74 of the samples contained the presence of methanol and/or 1-propanol at dangerous levels. "This presents serious safety concerns," the FDA said in a notice posted this week.