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snopes.com: Purell Hand Sanitizer Warning

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Home --> Inboxer Rebellion --> Household Tips --> Safety Moment

Safety Moment

Claim: Document pictures employee whose hands caught on fire when he lit a

cigarette after using a hand sanitizer product.

Status: False.

Example: [Collected via e-mail, 2007]

What happened: An employee of a company used an Instant HandSanitizer available in the bathroom. He immediately went outside fora cigarette break. It was windy so he held his hand up to block thewind as he was lighting the cigarette and his hand burst into flamesas he had not fully rubbed in the sanitizer.

The Cause: Purell Instant Hand Sanitizer

Product Description: Kills 99.99% of common germs that may causeillness in as little as 15 seconds. Use anytime, anyplace, withoutwater or towels. Contains moisturizers and vitamin E. Leaves handsfeeling refreshed without stickiness or residue.

Warnings: For external use only. Flammable, keep away from fire orflame.

Recommendation: Advise employees to make sure they rub in the

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hand sanitizer thoroughly and wash hands before lighting a cigaretteor putting their hand near any flame.

[Click here for PDF version of warning.]

Origins: This warning, which pictures and describes an incident involving an employee

whose hands supposedly burst into flame when he lit a cigarette after using a hand

sanitizer product, first hit our inbox in January 2007. The original PDF document bears a

Chevron logo and copyright notice with a 2005 date and specifically identifies Purell

brand hand sanitizer.

The consumer relations group at Johnson & Johnson, the parent company of Purell, told

us only that they were aware of the document, that the incident described was "notsomething they would expect to happen with their product," and that they had no other

information about it. The media relations department at Chevron provided us with the

following statement:

We are unable to ascertain the origins of the document and so cannotverify authorship or the accuracy of the contents. The views or opinionsexpressed in the document do not necessarily reflect the views of thecompany.

Hand sanitizers are widely available to Chevron employees at many of ouroffice locations and we encourage use of such products to prevent thespread of germs that can lead to illness.

As it turns out, the photographs embedded in the document have nothing to do with handsanitizer; they depict burns received in an electrical accident:

The hands on the Purell hand sanitizer page belong to an electrician whoworked at the Idaho National Lab. His hands were injured when he wasinstalling 277 V lighting fixtures and a tool he was holding came in contactwith a wire while he was on his back and holding the grounded side of thefixture:

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But even though the photographs don't correspond to the text, could an accident like theone described occur?

Hand sanitizers are typically alcohol-based gels containing isopropanol and/or ethyl alcohol,both of which are flammable. The Material Safety Data Sheet (MSDS) for Purell Instant

Hand Sanitizer includes that the product contains both those compounds (primarily thelatter), but how likely such a gel might be to catch fire and burn depends upon a numberof factors, including the concentration of water, moisturizing agents, and other elementspresent in the product.

We conducted a few simple experiments and found that even a small amount of PurellInstant Hand Sanitizer spread on a (non-organic) surface could easily be ignited by thebriefest touch of an open flame, although the resulting fire burned relatively cool and waseasily extinguished:

http://media.gojo.com/msds/english/PURELLInstantHandSanitizer.pdfhttp://media.gojo.com/msds/english/PURELLInstantHandSanitizer.pdf


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A 1998 Federal Aviation Administration fire-testing study of an ethanol-based gel hand

cleaner found that the product was "often difficult to ignite and can be extinguishedrelatively easily," although none of its trials involved igniting gel while it was in contact withskin.

Last updated: 25 January 2007

Urban Legends Reference Pages 1995-2012 by Barbara and David P. Mikkelson.This material may not be reproduced without permission.

snopes and the snopes.com logo are registered service marks of snopes.com.

http://www.tc.faa.gov/its/worldpac/techrpt/artn98-15.pdfhttp://www.tc.faa.gov/its/worldpac/techrpt/artn98-15.pdf

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