We all have that extra bit of hand sanitizer sitting around. Maybe it's something you were handed on a street corner or from your local drug store during the height of the pandemic, something off-brand or unmarked. It's hard to remember now, but during those first weeks of the pandemic, sanitizer was scarce—tiny bottles of Purell were being scalped for $400. Ten days after the WHO declared a global pandemic, the US Food and Drug Administration lifted all restrictions on hand-sanitizer manufacturing. "What happened next is a lesson about leaving disaster response to the whims of capitalism," writes Amy Martyn in her investigation into the toxic afterlife of pandemic hand sanitizer. "Without the threat of an FDA inspection, thousands of companies that had never made or sold hand sanitizer before, let alone any other over-the-counter drug, immediately began distribution. … Businesses were still expected to test their sanitizers for benzene and other toxic compounds, but essentially on an honor system." Sanitizer flooded the market, and where there was once too little, now there was far, far too much. It began to pile up. On September 30, 2021, a trailer park in Carson, California, was rocked by an explosion at a nearby warehouse. Thousands of boxes of unused hand sanitizer had caught fire and were now spewing noxious smoke across the city. "Some compared it to sewage, a bad perm, paint fumes, or death itself. Overwhelmingly the most common descriptor: rotten eggs." Residents complained about the terrible smell, then they began to complain about something worse: feeling very sick. – Michelle Legro | Deputy Editor, Features |
