[conspire] A Man Drank 1 Bottle Rubbing Alcohol For COVID-19. This Is What Happened To His Brain

[Michael Paoli]

It's mostly methanol that causes blindness.

A couple stories:

Many moons ago, my grandfather did volunteer stuff for the Lions Club.
Notably helping out vision impared and blind folks ... he was an
optometrist.  Anyway, one of the blind folks he'd occasionally drive to
various locations, how'd he go blind?  Methanol poisoning ... from bad
moonshine booze in the prohibition era.

So, ethanol, at least in the US, when not intended for human consumption,
such as adult beverages, generally "denatured".  Thing(s) added
to generally make it unpalettable, and also often difficult/challenging
to separate out just the ethanol - so also often methanol is also in the
mix.  There's also the non-denatured ethanol.  Straight ethanol, none of
the additives/contaminants - and also, when not for human consumption
purposes (adult beverages, with those sets of taxes and regulation),
as one might guess, fairly tightly controlled and monitored and such.
So, chem lab, chemistry instructor in college, told a story of a
chem lab once ... the non-denatured ethanol was repeatedly coming up
short.  So "they" (whatever person or persons) decided to try and find
out what was happening to it.  They spiked it - with phenolphthalein.
It's readily available in most chem labs - commonly used
as an acid-base indicator.  It's also a powerful laxative, and is (in
small amounts) the active ingredient in some laxatives.
Well, in short order, someone got a terribly bad case of the runs that
landed 'em in the hospital.  Mystery solved.

> From: "Rick Moen" <rick at linuxmafia.com>
> Subject: Re: [conspire] A Man Drank 1 Bottle Rubbing Alcohol For  
> COVID-19. This Is What Happened To His Brain
> Date: Sat, 25 Apr 2020 00:22:37 -0700

> Quoting Alex Kleider (akleider at sonic.net):
>
>> Your post reminds me of having learned in Medical school some 55
>> years ago that if someone shows up in the ER having consumed rubbing
>> alcohol (a, at least then, common occurrence on what were at that
>> time called 'Indian' reservations) the first line of treatment was
>> to blind fold him/her (usually the former.)  Blindness is the sequel
>> and apparently less likely to occur if no light hits the retina. I
>> still assume this to be true but confess to not having ever taken
>> the trouble to verify it.
>
> Apparently, some examples of denatured alcohol merely have methanol as
> part of the formula, which as you say endangers eyesight.  But all of
> the examples I've encountered have been more-typical 'rubbing alcohol'
> formulations, which in addition to methanol includes denatonium to make
> it extremely bitter, pyridine to make it very unpleasant smelling, and
> sometimes syrup of ipecac to induce immediate vomiting in anyone dumb
> enough to try to drink it.
>
> Unbelievable that people insist on trying, but I should know there's
> always somebody.