Doctors have revealed a common treatment to slow the effects of methanol poisoning.
It comes after six people died following a mass methanol poisoning in Laos, including Melbourne teenagers Bianca Jones and Holly Bowles.
Methanol – which is a chemical building block for hundreds of everyday products, including plastics, paints, car parts and construction materials – is often deliberately added to alcoholic beverages as a cheaper alternative to ethanol, the normal alcohol used in alcoholic drinks.
According to the Methanol Institute, this usually occurs in countries and territories where taxes on ethanol are seen as too high — such as Indonesia’s Bali and other Southeast Asian countries.
The Institute says methanol poisoning can be treated successfully if diagnosed within 10-30 hours of ingestion and recommends seeking medical attention at hospital with dialysis equipment.
Surprisingly, doctors have revealed that alcohol can help those suffering from methanol poisoning.
Alcohol works because the body will prioritize metabolising ethanol over methanol.
Methanol becomes dangerous when it is processed by the liver, this process releases toxic chemicals into the body causing organ damage.
So by drinking alcohol, methanol poisoning can be delayed and the body has time to get rid of the methanol safely through sweat or in urine.
In more extreme cases a patient can be kept “mildly drunk” while other treatments such as dialysis, which cleans the blood, are used.
Some patients can be kept drunk for up to a week while medics treat methanol poisoning.
Professor Alastair Hay, an expert in environmental toxicology at the University of Leeds, said alcohol works to stop methanol from being processed by the liver, giving the body time to get rid of the poison.
“It delays methanol metabolism,” he told the Daily Mail.
“If the poisoning is not too severe, and only blood tests will determine this, ethanol alone may suffice.”
Dr. Knut Erik Hovda from Médecins Sans Frontières (MSF) said it was critical to get help quickly after drinking methanol.
“You can ease all affects if you get to hospital early enough and that hospital has the treatment needed,” he told the BBC, before adding “the most important antidote is regular alcohol.”
Mass methanol poisoning rocks Laos tourist hotspot
Six people died following a suspected mass methanol poisoning in Laos in a tragedy that has shocked the world.
Jones and Bowles, both 19, died within a day of each other after consuming alcoholic drinks laced with methanol on November 12.
Danish women Anne-Sofie Orkild Coyman, 20, Freja Vennervald Sorensen, 21, American man James Louis Hutson, 57, and British lawyer Simone White have been named as the other victims.
They were all staying in the tourist town of Vang Vieng on the Banana Pancake Trail, a backpacking route popular with budget travellers.
Vang Vieng has a reputation as a party town and many bars hand out free shots and supply drugs to a mainly young and hedonistic clientele.
Tragically, a doctor who treated Bowles said she went from a state of confusion to a coma within half an hour of arriving at his medical center in Vang Vieng.
Dr. Yaher, from Vang Vieng’s district hospital, told The Times: “She was confused and she was sleepy. We asked her what she had eaten or drunk, but she didn’t know what had happened.”
Yaher thought she may have taken too many cannabis infused gummies and placed her on a drip.
“We put her on an IV drip and gave her vitamins. But after 30 minutes, she had a seizure and went into a coma. I was so surprised. We gave her CPR, because she had difficulty breathing, and we intubated her and referred her to (a hospital in Vientiane),” he said.
On Tuesday, police arrested eight “staff and management” of Nana Backpackers Hostel, where Jones and Bowles had been staying.
Staff had previously denied that they had supplied the contaminated alcohol to the backpackers and there is no suggestion those detained are responsible for the deaths.
The arrests, however, are only in connection with the deaths of Coyman, Sorensen, and Hutson. Police made no mention of the other three deaths.
The hostel was ordered to close last week and has not reopened.
Advice for travelers
Australian man Colin Ahearn, who runs the Facebook advisory page Just Don’t Drink Spirits in Bali, has been advocating for travellers to only drink single-serve beverages while abroad — such as bottled beer or pre-mixed sealed cans.
Ahearn earlier told news.com.au that once methanol starts to take hold of someone who has consumed the chemical, a relatively small amount can be fatal.
“The initial signs will be blurred vision, and around 99 percent of victims will have erratic breathing,” he said.
“They will have stomach cramps and diarrhea … and disorientation will hit. They will also want to sleep, and then what happens … it essentially embalms you.”
Ahearn said a single shot of methanol is enough to cause blindness, and while everyone processes the chemical differently — if someone weighed around 60kg (132 lbs) and had a double shot in their drink — “that would be lights out and enough to kill you”.
Ahearn said in order to avoid poisoning while travelling abroad in places like Bali, Laos or Thailand, travellers should only buy alcohol from reputable venues and shops, avoid pre-mixed drinks or cocktails that have not been poured in front of you and not to get swept up in cheap prices or free drinks, because low costs could indicate a home brew rather than from a reputable distillery.
