Questionable information on poisonings by alcohol surrogates

Correspondence address: Dr. Sergei Jargin Peoples' Friendship University of Russia Clementovski per 6-82, 115184 Moscow, Russia. TEL/FAX: 7-495-9516788 • E-MAIL: [email protected] manufacturing are accompanied by a generation of new by-products, adaptation to which has not developed yet. Diluted technical alcohol has been sold in vodka bottles through legally operating shops and eateries, added to beer, wine and other beverages. Following abolition of the state alcohol monopoly in 1992, the country was flooded by low-quality alcoholic beverages. The quality of sold alcohol seems to have improved since approximately the last decade. For more details and references see Jargin, 2010, 2016. Some publications create the impression that consumers deliberately purchase surrogates for drinking (Khaltourina & Korotayev, 2016). According to our observations and generally known facts, drinking of technical liquids and lotions has decreased abruptly after the end of the anti-alcohol campaign in 1989, when vodka, beer and other beverages have become easily available and were relatively cheap. The only major exceptions are alcoholcontaining liquids from the drug store. Some people go to the pharmacy not because of the lower price but as they hope to obtain quality alcohol, i.e. better purified than vodka from the bottle store. Converted to absolute alcohol, the tinctures from pharmacies are currently more expensive than cheap vodka. Recently 77 lethal cases were reported from a mass poisoning in Irkutsk (December 2016). According to available information, the poisoning was caused by the bath lotion Boyaryshnik (Hawthorn) containing 93% ethyl alcohol, hawthorn extract, lemon oil, diethyl phthalate and glycerol, yet the chemical analysis has reportedly shown that the lotion contained methyl alcohol (RT News, 2016; Wikipedia, 2016). The poisoning has however been suspected to have been caused by hawthorn (Crataegus) tincture containing according to the label 70% ethanol. The hawthorn tincture is the most common form of medicinal alcohol D the anti-alcohol campaign in the former Soviet Union (1985-1988), many distilleries producing alcoholic beverages of standard quality were closed and dismantled. Due to restricted sales, many people were drinking industrial liquid preparations, as window cleansing, lotions, etc. The alcohol consumption increased after the campaign (Jargin, 2010, 2016). At the same time, technical alcohol (synthetic and cellulosic) met no demand from the stagnating industry. Official permissions to use alcohol from non-edible raw materials for the production of beverages were issued during the 1990s (Nemtsov, 2010; Nuzhnyi et al., 2016). The permissions have later been revoked but, on the background of disregard for some laws and regulations, the use of technical alcohol has continued by some manufacturers. It was repeatedly demonstrated in animal experiments that synthetic and cellulosic alcohol are more toxic than alcohol from edible raw materials. Later on, purified synthetic and cellulosic alcohol were reported to comply with requirements for beverage alcohol (Nuzhnyi et al. 2016). Note that animal experiments may overestimate toxicity of alcohol produced by natural fermentation from edible raw materials in humans compared to synthetic and cellulosic ethanol. Milleniums of adaptation of certain human populations to alcohol included adaptation to chemical by-products of natural fermentation. Innovative methods of alcohol Interdiscip Toxicol. 2016; Vol. 9(3–4): 83–84. doi: 10.1515/intox-2016-0010