Dispensers of hand sanitizer have popped up in malls, schools, workplaces and on public transportation to make it easier for people to disinfect their hands. However, one consequence, documented in France, has been chemical injuries in children who have accidentally gotten sanitizer in their eyes.

There were seven times more cases among children of eye exposure to hazardous chemicals in hand sanitizer between April 1 and August 24, 2020, compared with the same period a year earlier, according to data from the French Poison Control Center.

Full story here.

Entering the second year of the pandemic, we’ve seen a number of activities and habits, previously unthought of, or seldom practiced, move to the forefront of our minds and increase in practice. We’ve got the obvious ones like mask wearing and social distancing, as well as all of the nuances to hand hygiene. Dudes who never washed their hands after pooping are now even give a rinse after they pee! By God, it’s a miracle.

Near the top of the list is also that we’ve seen the mass utilization of hand sanitizer. An item that once served as the fastest way to tell if your friend was OCD is now a must for every time you take a trip to the grocery store, touch a door knob, or pick your nose without thinking and tell yourself you’ll get Covid UNLESS you apply the stuff vigorously immediately. Now, all things are a double edged sword. Social distancing has prevented me from getting Covid, but it’s also lead to me avoiding the human touch for 12 months. Masks prevent the spread of the virus through droplets, but infringe on your constitutional right to be a spineless asshole! And just like that, hand sanitizer prevents the self-introduction of the droplets into our mucus membranes, but also burns out the eyes of our young. The question, folks, is not how, but why?

But also how?

How are these kids are filling their tear ducts with Purell? At first glance, it seemed like the best option was that kids were hand sanitizing and then touching their eyes. This seemed plausible. Reasonable. Even likely! I can’t stop touching my eyes regardless of what they’re covered in: sweat, jalapeño juice, raw eggs, blood, semen (don’t worry, not mine), hand sanitizer, soap, meat - you name it. I’m both the poster boy for getting Covid in the dumbest way possible, AND L’Oreal Kids ®.

I wouldn’t know how to even start preventing this. Kids (and I) can’t be helped. They’re (we’re) little monsters, driven by sensation and fixated on putting things in our eyes and mouths. They don’t know where their mouths are! They don’t know what goes in and what stays out! Case in point, little kids are always putting pennies in their mouths, licking batteries, eating leaves and shit- if you can’t stop that then how are you going to stop a child or 6’7” man-boy from rubbing their eyes. You can’t. 

THAT BEING SAID. It appears that this is NOT the method by which children are sending their retinas into the seventh circle of hell. 

The hospital cases were all in children under the age of 4, and the French researchers said the reason for this was likely because gel dispensers are usually at 1 meter (3 feet) in height. While this is waist level for most adults, it's eye level for young children.

”With the current widespread use of hand sanitizer in public places, it is not unexpected that young children would be drawn to these dispensers, many of which appear to be inadvertently designed to facilitate contact between the hand sanitizer and young eyes," said Dr. Kathryn Colby from the Grossman School of Medicine's department of ophthalmology at New York University in a commentary that accompanied the research.

So you’re telling me kids are just walking up to hand sanitizing stations and putting their eyes up to the fucking nozzle? Well then, these kids can’t be helped. You know those chemical rinsers that were in some high school chemistry classes? My worst fear would be that I’d get a poorly timed boner, douse my face in hydrochloric acid to distract the rest of the class and then be too afraid, or too incompetent to put my eyes up to the ‘eye hoses’. These kids in question do not share that fear, or that incompetence, or boners. They were born with the need to hold their eyes up to things that spray shit at them; absolute wildcards. 

Even teaching kids not to ‘accept candy from strangers’, or ‘leave with the nice man in the park’, or ‘listen to Here’s A Podcast Are You Happy Now?’ are easier tasks because we an understand the root causes. It makes sense why kids would want to do those things; candy is awesome, nice people are cool, and it’s a great podcast. Putting your face up to a hand sanitizing station is none of those things: at worst it’s a desire to bathe your eyes with an unknown chemical, and at best you’re leading with your face. Never lead with your face. Why would anyone lead with their face, ever? Why aren’t we having these problems with other waist-high appliances? Are kids burning their eyebrows off with bathroom hand-dryers? Are they pulling out paper towels from dispensers with their teeth? I don’t know what to say, and fortunately as a non-parent, that’s fine. 

I’m glad that these kids are okay. I’m worried about them for larger reasons, but I’m glad their eyes are all recovered. At the end of the day, are there better ways to teach a kid not to treat public Purell squirters like shower heads? Yes. Are there worse ways? Also yes.