Some hand sanitizers that popped up during the coronavirus pandemic to help meet the demand, contain high levels of a cancer-causing chemical, a new analysis finds.
Valisure, an online pharmacy based in New Haven, Connecticut, said it has detected benzene in several batches across multiple brands of hand sanitizer.
The product is considered as dangerous as asbestos and several companies had levels up to eight times that the limit recommended by the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA).
'The presence of benzene, a known human carcinogen, and multiple other contaminants, in products widely recommended for the prevention of spreading the SARS-CoV-2 virus causing COVID-19 and regularly used by adults and children in large volumes makes these findings especially troubling,' Valisure wrote in a letter to the FDA.