Calls to poison control centers about hand sanitizer have increased significantly since early this year.
Gail Banach is a spokeswoman at a New York poison center. She said many involve children under the age of 5 getting into a product that is mostly made of alcohol. Banach said it should be considered like a poison.
"Any type of hand sanitizer you want to keep it away from children," Banach said. "You don’t want to keep it sitting in your car or your purse. Because even hand sanitizer with ethyl alcohol can be dangerous to kids, but with methanol more dangerous."
Legal hand sanitizers contain ethyl alcohol, but since the pandemic started, some off-brand products contain methanol, which is illegal and can cause serious side effects if ingested.
The FDA has compiled a list of these companies and products and posted a do-not-use list of dangerous hand sanitizers.