A British family is sounding the alarm after their daughter died after inhaling too much aerosol deodorant.
Fourteen-year-old Giorgia Green, who had autism, found the scent of her spray-on deodorant comforting and liked to spray it on her blankets and then wrap herself in them, her father told the BBC.
“If she was feeling in any way a little bit anxious, she would spray this spray and it would give her a sense of comfort because it’s a deodorant my wife used,” Paul Green told the outlet.
His daughter was found unresponsive in May of last year after suffering cardiac arrest.
“At some point her heart stopped as a result of breathing it in,” Paul said, adding that her bedroom door was open at the time, “so it wasn’t as it if was an enclosed environment.”
Get breaking National news
Although it’s unknown how much of the product Giorgia possibly inhaled, Paul and his wife, Clare Green, say she would have inhaled more than the amount normally sprayed during a single application.
And now they are now calling for clearer product labelling to warn others of the dangers of aerosol deodorants.
“Please help us spread the word that toxic/poisonous chemicals and gases in aerosol cans CAN KILL!!!” the couple wrote on the fundraising site Justgiving.com.
“So many people have asked what we can do to help. What we really want is to raise awareness about the dangers of aerosol products in the home. This hopefully could prevent further tragedies happening again. Now, our greatest wish is that beloved Giorgia’s passing is not in vain,” they added, saying that they will use the donations raised to help spread awareness.
The couple believes that the current warnings on aerosol cans in the U.K. are too small. The British Aerosol Manufacturers’ Association, however, told the outlet that deodorants have “very clear warnings.”
An inquest into the teen’s passing found her cause of death was “unascertained but consistent with inhalation of aerosol,” reports The Telegraph.
Canada has a range of labelling requirements for cosmetics that come in pressurized cans, including standards for symbols, placement, font sizes and wording, depending on the size and type of product.
Comments