Hand Sanitiser Recall: Were the toxic chemicals linked to the spike in child deaths in 2022?

We will start the journey by casting our minds back to mid 2022. Unexplained cases of severe hepatitis were being diagnosed in children in several countries. In Ireland there was at least one death and one liver transplant (possibly more).

Authorities conveyed bafflement. Whatever could the cause be? Who knew? Theories were put forward by so called experts and others in mainstream media. One such theory proposed domestic dogs may be to blame for causing the mystery cases, although the logic for this suspicion was not satisfactorily explained. How had such a phenomenon of child hepatitis never happened previously in Ireland, as a result of keeping canine companions? Furthermore, why were Irish authorities using tax payers money to pay for Ukrainian refugee’s pets to be brought to Ireland at the time, without the need for proof of vaccines? If indeed zoonotic diseases were a public health concern?

Increase in Hepatitis Cases in Under 10s

Around the same time in 2022, an  increase in severe hepatitis cases in children under 10 was reported in the UK. The UK Health Security Agency informed the public of unusual and unexplained increases in England, Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland. It was proposed Covid 19 (SARS-CoV-2) could be the cause, however hepatitis caused by Covid 19 is even more rare than autoimmune hepatitis. A condition that affects just 10,000 people in the UK. Furthermore, only some of the children affected had previously been infected by Covid 19 (as was the case in Ireland also). Overall, the cases were never adequately explained. What was the definitive cause? How many children died or needed transplants?

In Ireland, a small number of members of the public and alternative media journalists began to speculate online: Could prolonged use of hand sanitiser have played a role in cases of liver inflammation? As soon as this concern was mentioned though, Irish authorities went deathly quiet, and never again was the hepatitis scare mentioned. Barely a trace remained to even prove it had occurred at all. 

Surge in Strep A affecting Children

Just a few months later, before the end of 2022 the Health Protection Surveillance Group would announce an “unusual surge’ in invasive Group A Streptococcus disease, particularly affecting children. Cases were 4.5 times higher than they had been compared to the years prior to Covid lockdowns and other state approved public health measures. In October 2023, it would be reported that 12 children had died from Strep A in the previous 12 months, despite that it is ordinarily treatable with antibiotics. Cases appeared to be antibiotic resistant and sepsis was manifesting in the affected children as a result.

Increases in Strep A were also reported in other European countries such as the UK. 30 children were reported to have died from Strep A in the UK between September and December 2022. How many children were affected across the world? How many died? And was it in the name of staying safe?

Cover-up

This time the Irish establishment decided to reveal the most likely cause. Too many deaths of children had occurred for silence to be an option. However, the truth was mostly revealed in the lower bowels of mainstream articles. It is almost as though they know that the average consumer of news don’t generally read articles in their entirety. Over zealous sanitising of environments and hands had likely lowered immunity in (mostly) otherwise healthy children, but most, to this day, remain unaware.

At the point (where upon it was revealed that being too clean can be bad for your health) children had for over 2 years been ritually doused in hand sanitiser, ostensibly to protect them and others from the Covid 19 virus. Little bottles of innocuous looking germ killing solution became a familiar sight on class tables in educational settings all over Ireland. The inherent tendency for parents to worry about their offspring was manipulated, and, as a result, covering small hands in chemicals and alcohol became a regular daily practice. It was seen as a sign of a responsible parent and member of society. 

I lost count of the amount of times I was confronted with conflict when I refused to sanitise my small child’s hands upon entry to a shop (never mind my own). The collective mindset was that children were harbingers of filth and sickness. Some stores refused entry altogether to those with children in tow.

Given the psychosis and panic that was in prevalence, it is not unreasonable to think children were probably being exposed to hand sanitiser more than adults on average. After all, most parents feel their children need their hands washed regularly, and it is much less time and energy consuming for caregivers to dispense a blob of solution, than stand over a sink ensuring the cleanliness of deeply reluctant handwashers. Hand sanitiser did away with with germs, viruses and indeed, frustration.

The practice of using sanitiser on even very young children (as well as the prolific use of masks) continued for the entire duration of the Covid era, even though in October 2020, several brands of hand sanitiser used in Irish schools were recalled after they were proven to cause skin issues, nausea, headaches and respiratory issues. It was also revealed that the government did not recall the products immediately after they were made aware of the issues the hand sanistisers were causing in children. Tests showed the products contained harmful levels of the irritant methanol.

At the time, the Irish Minister for Agriculture Charlie McConalogue said that would be carrying out a review. “The Department is taking this matter very seriously… and will continue to follow up and investigate the matter,” he commented. However, as with the hepatitis cases, silence ensued, and both the Department of Health and the Irish Minister for Children Roderic O’Gorman did not appear to view the issue as worthy of their attention. The involvement of the Minister for Agriculture gave the impression that any governmental concern arose from the fact that hand sanitiser companies has made so much money in exchange for inadequate products.

To this day it remains unclear how many children were affected. It is unclear what the investigatory outcome was. All went quiet. As it subsequently did with the hepatitis cases. It is unclear if any of the children affected with hepatitis had consumed or had been exposed to regular use of the brands involved in the recall scandal. The British Medical Journal has previously warned that swallowing alcohol-based hand sanitiser can kill and cause hepatitis, but clearly studies are needed around children absorbing sanitiser into their bloodstream.

Particularly in light of a recent study which did not shed light on whether hand sanitiser can cause liver inflammation, but did demonstrate that when hand sanitiser is used for its intended purpose, it can potentially harm the brain during critical stages of development. The study used human cell cultures and mice pups. Along with his colleagues, Eric Cohn, a molecular biologist at western Reserve University in Ohio, found that 1,823 quaternary compounds of unknown toxicity killed or halted the development of ogliodendrocytes. Such compounds are used in disinfectant sprays, wipes, hand sanitizers, toothpaste and other products that can easily be ingested or inhaled.

In mice experiments, baby mice were shown to have levels of compound chemicals detectable in their brain tissue days after administration of the compounds, suggesting the compounds cross the blood-brain barrier. The mice were also given the compound cetylpyridinium chloride (CPC) at 5 days old and were found to have depleted numbers of oligodendrocytes. In “brain organoids” a similiar phenomenon could be observed. Brain organoids are clusters of stem cells grown in a dish which behave akin to human brain tissue. CPC is used in hand sanitiser and also to sanitise animals products meant for human consumption.

Along with the other questions raised herein, we must ask how has the brain development of children in Ireland, the UK and all over the world, been affected by the prolonged, unnecessary used of hand sanitiser over a two plus year period?

Unfortunately we may never know. Studies on such concerns would probably not receive funding, and in any case the effects may be unquantifiable.

Vectors of Disease

What we do know is “experts” on Irish mainstream platforms were unchallenged when they incorrectly described children as “vectors of disease”. An Oireachtas (government) Committee would later hear how this untruth stigmatised and mentally affected Irish children. The soundbite repeated over and over again by the establishment was “a hug could kill your granny.” Can we take a moment to comprehend the psychological trauma this caused? Or how damaging it was to make children feel such a massive responsibility for the lives of other adults?

The now cancelled State funded RTE show Claire Byrne Live was particularly guilty of disseminating the lie that childen were virus ridden and therefore a risk to all around them. This lie was later proven to be categorically false. Children were scarcely affected by the virus, meaning that they were not the super spreaders that they were purported to be. A comprehensive study by scientists from University College London, Liverpool, Bristol and York published the results of a study in 2021, which showed that children had a two in a million chance of succumbing to Covid 19 (including immunocompromised children).

Micheál Martin Directly Addresses Children

Nonetheless, children were pressured to take the jab and in a spectacular act of emotional grooming and child abuse, the then Taoiseach (Prime Minister) of Ireland Micheal Martin, directly addressed (on TV) and pleaded with the children of Ireland to get back vaccinated in order to keep their loved ones safe from themselves. Implied was that their lives wouldn’t get back to normal until they would complete this request (even though it was known at that stage that the jab did not prevent transmission anyway). The Child protection state agency TUSLA and other child protection organisations such as Barnardos, as well as the Children’s Ombudsman Dr. Niall Muldoon, failed to speak out in defence of children at that time or at any other time during the Covid era. The latter now concedes that much harm was done as a result of some public health measures such as prolonged lockdowns.

The True Cost

But the damage has been done to children. Children who did not cause damage to anyone. They were not transmitting the virus, or being affected by it, but they were most certainly affected in boundless ways by measures and practices inflicted upon them. Far more children in Ireland died from Strep A than they did of Covid 19. Children who for the most part had been fully healthy prior to death caused by Streptococcus infection. In November 2021, it was reported that an immunocompromised child under 14 had died in Ireland with Covid-19 (as opposed to of the virus). Other than this case it is hard to find any evidence of verified Covid-19 related child deaths within the country, and yet so many harms were inflicted upon children in the course of what was described as curbing the spread. Some were physical harms, as has been described throughout this article.
Others were educational, psychological, psycho social, emotional, and so on and so forth 

Most effects are immeasurable, but will be long lasting, and may possibly still render their effects decades into the future (or even transcend generations).
Children were pressured, castigated, scapegoated and used by adults in society. Unnecessarily, unfairly, unjustifiably and unforgivably.

Nothing can sanitise this truth. There is no little bottle of solution for that.

Nonetheless the public has moved on from the Covid-19 health measures hellscape that was; and many are still of unaware of the harms inflicted. Other issues naturally preoccupy their minds now, such as the worrying about the genuinely concerning matter of uncontrolled mass immigration. 

In effect, our memories, like our hands, have been wiped clean. Even the most aware and awake (who posted “never let them forget” many a time) seem to have let go of what was done to our most innocent, and so it is important as writers and as truth tellers to occasionally remind others that, as we move on, some young lives won’t;  because their’s were lost in the course of killing for cleanliness.

By Susanne Delaney
(Suzie D).