Deadly Counterfeit Lotion Kills 58 In Russian City

2998357 12/19/2016 Bottles with alcohol-containing bath lotion with hawtorn. Mass poisoning with an alcohol-containing fluid occurred in Irkutsk. Vladimir Smirnov via AP

MOSCOW (AP) — Russian health officials say at least 58 people have died in a Siberian city from methanol poisoning after consuming counterfeit bath lotion.

The death toll in Irkutsk, Russia’s six-largest city with a population of 1.1 million, has been rising since Sunday.

The local health department said Tuesday that 58 have died of poisoning with deadly methanol contained in the lotion, and nearly 40 others remain hospitalized.

Bottles with the lotion carried warnings that they weren’t for internal use, but labels said the product contained ethyl alcohol rather than deadly methanol.

Poisonings caused by cheap surrogate alcohol are a regular occurrence in Russia, but the Irkutsk case is unprecedented in its scale. The sales of lotions and tinctures containing alcohol have risen in recent years as Russia’s economy has faltered.

Copyright 2016 The Associated Press. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed.

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  1. So… Bathtub gin makes a comeback —

  2. Someone on trump team is already thinking “if we get rid of the FDA how much do you think we could make…” After all aren’t we modeling Russia these days?

  3. Avatar for gajake gajake says:

    Well, not doing away with the FDA, exactly. But letting drug companies go to market with very little safety testing. Gets drugs to the market much faster, and the market will sort out the failures, dontcha know. Quickest way to make billionaires more or less immortal. Peter Thiel.

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