Isopropyl Alcohol

by Bob Flaws, Dipl. Ac. & C.H., FNAAOM

Blue Poppy Herbs uses isopropyl alcohol in its liniments and tinctures for two reasons: 1) its price and 2) Alcohol, Tobacco & Firearms Bureau (ATFB) red tape. Over the years, we have tried to buy ethyl alcohol, so-called drinking alcohol, for use in the manufacture of our products. However, we have not be able to find a cost-effective wholesale source. In addition, because ethyl alcohol is "drinking" alcohol, there are numerous licenses and rules and regulations regarding its purchase and resale, even for remedies meant for external application only. Therefore, because isopropyl alcohol is easily available, cost-effective, and its repackaging and sale do not require Federal and/or State licensing and also because it is used in a number of other commonly sold products meant for external application, we have chosen isopropyl alcohol as the medium for our liniments and tinctures. Isopropyl alcohol is manufactured and sold for application to human skin for the express purposes of disinfection and as a rubifacient. Another name in trade for isopropyl alcohol is "rubbing alcohol." It is also found in various cosmetics. Isopropyl alcohol is sold for these purposes and in such products in grocery and drugstores without caution or limitation across America.

In Chinese medicine, alcohol, including isopropyl alcohol, is considered acrid, bitter, and hot. It enters all the channels and vessels of the entire body. It strongly moves the qi and quickens the blood. It also potentizes other medicinals that are combined with it. Therefore, alcohol has been used for thousands of years in Chinese medicine as a medium for external medications and especially for those intended for the treatment of pain and traumatic injury. In this case, the alcohol itself is considered not just the medium but an active ingredient in the formula.

Recently, Dr. Hulda Clark, ND, has raised concerns over isopropyl alcohol's safety even when ony used externally. Dr. Clark is the author of a popular book titled A Cure for All Cancers. In it, Dr. Clark says that she has found traces of isopropyl alcohol in the livers of numerous patients with cancers of various sorts. However, she does not explain how the isopropyl alcohol arrived in these patients' livers nor any causal relationship between it an these patients' cancers. As Dr. Clark herself admits, her research has been turned down as lacking merit by at least three juries of experts at major American medical journals. Dr. Clark's book title should cause concern in the mind of any professional health care practitioner.

Nevertheless, because of the concerns Dr. Clark has raised about the safety of externally applied isopropyl alcohol, we have tried to do our own independent research. What we have found is that, according to the best scientific data available at this time, isopropyl alcohol is not a carcinogen when used externally. Nasal cancers found in workers in factories where this type of alcohol is produced are due not to the isopropyl alcohol itself but to the strong acid used in its manufacture. The "Material Safety Data Sheet" on Hibiclens® (which contains isopropyl alcohol as a main ingredient) published by ICI Americas, Inc. states:

The manufacture of isopropyl alcohol by the strong acid process is associated with paranasal sinus and laryngeal cancer in man. No other information or data have linked isopropyl alcohol with cancer.1

Likewise, David Kailin, Lic. Ac. and Ph.D. in Public Health, unequivocally says, "There is no evidence that Isopropyl Alcohol is a carcinogen."2 Further, the lawyers at McGhee & Pianelli, L.L.P., corroborate that it is the production of isopropyl alcohol that is potentially carcinogenic,3 not its external use.

www.caretechlabs.com/MSDS/HIBICLENS_MSDS.htm, p. 4 Kailin, David, Acupuncture Risk Management, CMS Press, Corvallis, OR, 1977, p. 259 "Cancer Causing Agents, Exposure and Site of Cancer," McGhee & Pianelli, L.L.P., http://lawtx.com/cancer.html, p. 2

All Blue Poppy Herbs' products containing isopropyl alcohol are meant for external application only, and we believe these products are safe when used as instructed. Because isopropyl alcohol may cause skin irritation in some persons, it should only be applied to a small area at first in order to test the patient's personal reaction. It should then be applied to larger areas only if the patient does not have an adverse reaction. Patients who know they are adversely sensitive to isopropyl alcohol should not use these products.

We believe that Dr. Clark's suggestion that externally applied isopropyl alcohol is carcinogenic is scientifically unfounded, and we would certainly not manufacture our products with this ingredient if we thought it was carcinogenic. Nevertheless, we promise to keep an eye on this issue. Our customers can rest assured that we will discontinue the manufacture and sale of any product found to contain a proven carcinogen. Till then, we believe Blue Poppy Herbs' liniments and tinctures are safe when used as instructed. As the ever-increasing sale of these products suggest, many patients and practitioners alike are finding them very useful.