Friday, July 20, 2007

A "Handy" New Product About To Hit The Shelves

In my other blog - "Summer With Grandmother Wren" I wrote a post on June 11th about the hazards posed to children who ingest hand sanitizers. The alcohol content of these sanitizers that we all carry with us ( or we all should carry with us ) is very high, we regard the risk as low - it is easy for an accident involving our grandchildren to follow.
The obvious solution is to use the same caution with hand sanitizers that we use with other household products - quit regarding them as "just soap" and leaving the bottle on the counter or sink.
In my email I received another solution - one that I'm looking forward to. I'm sure all of us will be happy to hear of this new development.
Here's the email:

Karen:

I work for a public relations agency and represent a product called Germ-X(http://www.germx.com). After reading your June 11 post about hand sanitizers, thought I might pass along some news from Germ-X.

As you reported on, hand sanitizers have been a hot topic this year among parents. Reports of children becoming ill from ingesting alcohol-based hand sanitizers emphasize the importance of parental supervision when it comes to children and common household products. When used as directed, hand sanitizers are safe and offer vital health benefits.

The germ-busting stuff really is top-of-mind right now …school supply lists from around the country are asking parents to send kids back to school this fall with a bottle of hand sanitizer. And there’s good reason: Studies have shown a decrease in the average sick time of students who use hand sanitizers as a part of their hand hygiene regimen (see: American Journal of Infection Control).

To effectively kill 99.99 percent of germs, hand sanitizers like Germ-X and Purell contain 62% ethyl alcohol. In fact, The Centers for Disease Control study shows that in lower percentages of alcohol, hand sanitizers are less effective. (http://www.cdc.gov/ncidod/EID/vol12no03/05-0955.htm)

Next month, Germ-X is introducing an alternative to traditional alcohol-based products. Germ-X® Advanced Protection is a new formula that uses active ingredient benzalkonium chloride (the same stuff found in eyewashes and surface cleaners) to kill 99.99 percent of common germs.

Germ-X Advanced Protection may be of interest to those looking for a substitute to alcohol-based hand sanitizers. The foaming hand sanitizer has a light, clean feel and a fresh smell … and, with vitamin E and other moisturizers, it keeps hands soft.

Karen, I’d be happy to send you samples of this new product (it will hits shelves mid-August), and can send additional information. Would you please let me know if this might be of interest? Thanks for your time.

Lauren Brucker
Fleishman-Hillard, Inc. – for Germ-X

I'm very happy to get this news and I'm looking forward to trying this new product -
I'll post again when I've tried it and in the meanwhile, why not watch for it to show up in the store in August?
(If you see it before I do, let me know and I'll pass it along...)