Thursday, October 12, 2006
Cleanser looks like a sports drink
Nearly 100 people have mistakenly ingested Fabuloso, thinking it was a beverage.
Eric Brady | The Roanoke Times
Cleaning products such as Fabuloso looks similar to sport drinks, such as the Gatorade products displayed here besides three examples of Fabuloso.
Related
Chat Scan
The health risk is low. The yuck factor is high.
A physicians group warned Wednesday that dozens of Texans mistakenly drank a mild cleaning product that happens to look like a sports drink.
Fabuloso is a buck a bottle at some Roanoke stores, deliciously colored and fits comfortably in the hand. Its purpose, however, is cleaning floors and toilets.
But researchers with the American College of Emergency documented 94 cases of accidental ingestion during the first four months of the year across Texas. Many were children under 6, the group said.
Medical researchers, who plan to release a study Monday, blame the confusion on what they call a poor choice of packaging that distributor Colgate-Palmolive Co. needs to correct.
"People should be aware that children especially may be confused and try to drink it," said a statement attributed to Dr. David Masneri of the research team.
Colgate said Wednesday that it began shipping Fabuloso with a "child-safety cap" in September to "protect against misuse." Fabuloso has been on the market since 1997, meets standards of the U.S. Consumer Product Safety Commission and bears a picture of a mop and bucket and the words "multi-use cleaner" on the label, said a company statement.
The cleaning agent, which is made in Mexico (hence the name, which is Spanish for "fabulous"), was available Wednesday online and in stores in colors reminiscent of popular lime green, purple, blue and red sports drinks.
"It looks like something a kid would pick up and drink," said shopper Lou Bousman, who viewed a reporter's display of Gatorade products beside Fabuloso at Cave Spring Corners on Wednesday. "That's very misleading."
Three other shoppers distinguished between the drink and the cleaning agent but acknowledged confusion is possible.
"I would not buy it if I had kids," said April Saunders, first assistant store manager at Dollar General, where the Fabuloso was purchased.
Vivian Sanchez-Jones, school liaison officer with Refugee and Immigration Services in Roanoke, said Fabuloso is widely used by Hispanics and carried in ethnic markets in the Roanoke Valley. She has never heard of anyone ingesting it, and the Blue Ridge Poison Center had not received any ingestion reports.
Christopher Holstege, medical director of the poison center, said the danger from drinking Fabuloso is minimal. For one, most people will stop after a sip.
"Most people are going to drink it, say 'That tastes bad!' and not drink large quantities," Holstege said. "It will be like drinking dishwasher liquid or washing machine detergent."
And while it sounds dangerous to swallow those things, it would be more irritating than harmful. In fact, the poison center recommends that anyone drinking Fabuloso -- or any similar product -- call them first.
"We can save you a trip to the hospital," said Kathy Mayo, a nurse at the Blue Ridge Poison Center.
Dr. Mark Levsky was among a group of Texas emergency room doctors who noticed a common complaint among some emergency room patients: ingestion of Fabuloso. That led to a detailed analysis of Texas poison control records. During the project he drank some.
"It smells like it would taste good. It really doesn't have much taste," Levsky said in an interview. "It tastes like soap, which is basically what it is."
Staff writer Andrew Kantor contributed to this report.
