Things We Take for Granted

Simple things. Like the fact that our bottled and canned products aren’t full of deadly poison. Like vodka in Siberia. Remember the nation-wide panic caused by Tylenol that was laced with cyanide back in 1982? Only a few deaths were attributed to that scare, and it led to a revolution in product and food safety. Every time you have difficulty opening a container of mustard because it has an internal seal, you can thank (or curse) the Tylenol scare.

In Siberia, 900 people are dying in hospital beds due to liver failure because some maniac was bottling industrial solvent and passing it off as vodka.

From the BBC here:

Fourteen towns in the Irkutsk region of Siberia have declared a state of emergency, amid a dramatic upsurge in mass poisonings caused by fake vodka.

Almost 900 people in the region are in hospital with liver failure, apparently after drinking industrial solvent.

Officials say there has been an alarming pattern of localized mass poisonings in recent weeks.

In several of the worst-affected regions, Russian officials have seized large quantities of hazardous liquids that authorities suspected were to be sold as alcoholic drinks.

They say the most common substances are de-icers, anti-rust treatments and window-cleaning solutions.

In one of the largest seizures, 600 tons of solvent was seized in the southern Russian city of Voronezh.

It is an indication of the scale of Russia’s drink problem that during an average month 3,500 people die after drinking such liquids.