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Ethanol Plants Seek Rule Changes to Resupply Hand Sanitizer

Associated Press

   DES MOINES, IOWA - As hospitals and nursing homes desperately search
   for hand sanitizer amid the coronavirus outbreak, federal regulators
   are preventing ethanol producers from providing millions of gallons of
   alcohol that could be transformed into the germ-killing mixture.

   The U.S. Food and Drug Administration's roadblock has been frustrating
   the health care and ethanol industries, which have been calling for a
   relaxed regulation to deal with the public health care emergency.

   "Hand sanitizer is a big part of our lives," said Eric Barber, CEO of
   Mary Lanning Healthcare, a hospital in Hastings, Nebraska. "We can't
   get any. We order it and it's just not available."

   The problem for the ethanol industry is that most plants make
   food-grade ethanol, one step below the highest pharmaceutical grade.
   But since the plants aren't certified to comply with stringent
   production standards designed to protect quality of medicines, food
   ingredients and dietary supplements, the FDA doesn't want the alcohol
   used for a product to be applied to the skin.

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