Why Are the Children Getting Drunk?

She had to visit emergency room. As a point of reference, a full glass of beer contains an average of 5 percent alcohol.

And there have been many other cases of alcohol poisoning where the patients only consumed as little as two (2) or three (3) squirts. The alcohol had caused her to fall and hit her head, CNN reports. Alcohol poisoning can cause confusion, vomiting, and drowsiness, and in severe cases, the child can stop breathing, or even die, reports USFoodSafety.com.

Dr. Gaylord Lopez, the poison center’s director, told CNN,

“Kids are getting into these products more frequently, and unfortunately, there’s a percentage of them going to the emergency room.”

Nhaijah Russell’s parents had no idea what was wrong with their daughter when she was rushed to an emergency room from school.

Ever since 2010, there has been a 400% increase among poison control center hotlines across the whole country, with calls related to children younger than 12 swallowing hand sanitizer, according to new analysis by the Georgia Poison Center.

A spokesperson for Henrico County School said they only have hand sanitizer in places where there is adult supervision. “With older kids, if you get addicted to this-and I say addicted very much like an alcoholic gets addicted to alcohol-you could end up with the same kind of problems that people who overindulge in alcohol”, said University Hospitals Rainbow Babies & Children’s Hospital’s Dr. Lolita McDavid. The number increased to 16,117 cases in 2014.

Lopez explained why so many children are ingesting hand sanitizer without thinking about the consequences.

Parents and teachers should store hand sanitizer out of reach of children and monitor its use, Lopez recommends.

The spike is partly caused by new scents and flavors appealing to kids, doctors said.

“Laundry detergent, the laundry packets that came out, those were a big thing that kids were eating because they look like juice pouches, they look like little sweets and there’s always something in the house”, Hayford said. The sanitizer bottle has enough alcohol contain to make a child dangerously drunk.