Say I am stating the obvious, but I have never, ever had the urge to drink my Latino themed cleaning products, no matter how brightly colored they may be or how lemony fresh they may smell. I also don’t store my cleaning products in the fridge where my cold beverages are nor have I ever walked into a bodega or grocery store looking for something to quench my thirst and accidently picked up a bottle of cleaning fluid. But maybe that’s just me. Based on local and national news stories, it seems that some people are having a problem telling the Colgate-Pamolive owned Fabuloso general cleanser from sports drinks.

From Jan. 1 to April 20, researchers found 104 records in the Texas Poison Center database of human ingestion of Fabuloso, manufactured by Colgate-Palmolive. Of these, 94 were unintentional and 2 were occupational exposures. The rest were either related to self-harm or not characterized as to cause. None caused serious harm.
Fabuloso is sold in purple, blue, yellow and green varieties, and packaged in one-liter, transparent plastic bottles that resemble soft drink containers.
The study’s authors say the most common reason for ingestion appeared to have been mistaking the product for a drink. More than 40 percent of the calls to the poison center involved ingestion by people over 12.

While the detergent based cleanser won’t kill you, it will make you at the very least vomit. Based on the rise in complaints the label of the cleaning product has been changed to include a more prominant picture of things to be cleaned or things used to clean like toilets and mops (not mouths) and Colgate-Pamolive is going to include a child-proof cap. Thay are also considering changing the shape of the bottle the product comes in.

Am I the only one shaking my head at this one? Cleaning my house may drive me to drink, pero ni pa’tanto.

Via / The New York Times (Registration Required)
Image Via / Zefrank