Different rules for some, as always
Does the alcohol-based hand sanitiser on sale in SA legally have to contain 70% alcohol?
In July, before I wrote up the results of tests conducted by KwaZulu-Natal private lab SciCorp on nine brands of hand sanitisers on sale at various retailers — plus two which were sprayed on shoppers’ hands in malls — I was told by several key people in government and scientific circles that it most definitely was required by government regulation.
And when I questioned Canway, which owns the Oh So Heavenly brand, about why its hand cleanser product, bought in early May (with no alcohol content declared on the label) was found to be only 66.3% alcohol, it referred to the government regulation in its response.
The company said it had until the end of April produced 60% alcohol hand “cleansers ”— in line with the US Centers for Disease Control recommendations, but upped that to 70% from May “in order to comply with SA government regulations relating to Covid-19”, relabelling its “Waterless Hand Cleanser” as “Waterless Hand Sanitiser”.
“All of our Waterless Hand Sanitisers produced after May 1 include 70% alcohol,” Canway said, “apart from a 60% alcohol “cleanser” marketed for use by children.”
So that’s what I wrote. But SciCorp’s sanitiser test results chart, published alongside my story, stated that the Oh So Heavenly hand cleanser product claimed to contain 70% alcohol on its website (while lab tests revealed its alcohol content to be 66.3%), when in fact the 70% website claim applies to its reformulated hand sanitiser product which does, in fact, live up to the claim.
That left the company feeling a bit miffed, understandably, as it created confusion among its customers.
“We’d be grateful if you could please clarify that the Oh So Heavenly Hand Sanitiser product does in fact contain at least 70% alcohol,” said Amy Brown, the Canway Group’s marketing director. Done.
As it turns out, there is no regulation compelling alcoholbased hand sanitisers on sale in SA to contain at least 70% alcohol. There are regulations compelling workplaces to have minimum 70% alcohol hand sanitisers for use by workers; another regulation requires the same of places of worship, and most brands declare their alcohol content to be more than 70%, but curiously, there’s nothing legally forcing them to produce a product for sale to consumers with that specific alcohol content.
So the sanitiser that the supermarket teller sprays on her hands is legally required to contain 70% alcohol, but the product she scans for your purchase doesn’t have to be.
But a misleading claim about a product is definitely illegal — it’s a contravention of the Consumer Protection Act.
So what a company can’t do is make the 70% alcohol claim if its product doesn’t live up to that claim. Several of the test samples did just that — two tested as low as 46% and 55% alcohol — and that’s clearly a major concern in the midst of a pandemic.
Even prof Salim Abdool Karim, chair of the Ministerial Advisory Committee on Covid19, was unaware that the alcohol content of sanitisers sold to the general public wasn’t regulated.
“The World Health Organisation recommends 70% alcohol in ABHRs [alcohol-based hand rubs],” he said. “60% is likely to be too low.”
Renowned microbiologist Lucia Anelich called the regulatory omission for hand sanitisers in the retail trade “one of the many conflicting and uncoordinated responses from government related to Covid-19”.
“Theregulations are silent on the alcohol content for hand sanitisers put on sale for consumers to buy.”
The only to way to know a product’s alcohol content for sure is to have it scientifically analysed. The retailers aren’t going to do it, so they have to trust the suppliers, and they in turn have to trust the source of their alcohol.
Since the publishing of the results of SciCorp’s analysis of those 11 sanitisers in July, many hand sanitiser manufacturers have asked the company to test their products, says business development director Adrian Barnard.
“Whether they are getting pressure from retailers or taking the onus on themselves is unclear, but regardless, there is definitely a lot of concern now, which breeds competition, resulting in manufacturers wanting independent scientific documentation to back the claims they make.
“That’s a definite win for the consumer. There have been some really dodgy results, in terms of alcohol content, but overall the results have been encouraging,” Barnard said.
The lab will from this week (Monday, August 31) start testing hand sanitiser samples specifically for methanol, a toxic by-product of ethanol (alcohol) production which should be filtered out, but sometimes is not.
Since June, the US Food and Drug Administration has created a list of “Do Not Use” hand sanitisers, for several reasons, including methanol content.
The are 165 products on that list. Needless to say, I’m eagerly awaiting the results of those local methanol tests.
GET IN TOUCH: Contact Wendy Knowler for advice with your consumer issues via e-mail at consumer@knowler.co.za or on Twitter @wendyknowler.