by Ashley Sadler at LifeSite News
Just weeks after the Biden administration began mailing hundreds of millions of free at-home COVID-19 tests to U.S. families in January, health experts are now reporting that at least some of the test kits contain a toxic substance that has led to a surge in poison center calls across the country.
In a February 16 blog post, the Cincinnati Drug and Poison Information Center reported it had seen “an uptick in accidental exposures” to a reagent liquid included in some at-home COVID test kits.
The liquid, which “is used to trigger the chemical reaction that detects the presence of coronavirus,” contains the potentially toxic ingredient sodium azide, which acts as a preservative.
Sodium azide can cause low blood pressure, dizziness, headaches, and heart palpitations if swallowed in small doses, and larger amounts can cause seizures, loss of consciousness, or even death.
The Biden administration has sent out over 250 million free test kits to American families since January. It’s unclear how many of the kits contain sodium azide.
Risk of exposure to the chemical in at-home COVID tests has led Texas and Ohio to issue warnings about the reagent liquid.
Meanwhile, the National Capital Poison Center (NCPC) has put out its own advisory about the potentially dangerous chemical.
“It is important to know that the extraction vial in many rapid antigen kits includes the chemical sodium azide as a preservative agent,” wrote NCPC Medical Toxicologist Maryann Amirshahi in a statement, noting that the chemical is found in the BinaxNow, BD Veritor, Flowflex, and Celltrion DiaTrust COVID-19 rapid antigen kits.
Amirshahi described sodium azide as “a colorless, tasteless, and odorless powder that has been used as a propellant in automobile airbags, an herbicide, and a pest control agent.”
According to the NCPC statement, the substance is “a very potent poison, and ingestion of relatively low doses can cause significant toxicity.”
However, the center noted that the quantity of sodium azide included in the COVID test kits “is much lower than the amount expected to cause poisoning if swallowed by an adult.”…
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