FDA charging distilleries over $14K in fees for making hand sanitizer

Dec 31, 2020 9:23 PM

sfbiker

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And they have to stop making it by Dec 31st (today) if they want to avoid the same fee next year.

https://www.usatoday.com/story/money/2020/12/31/fda-fees-distilleries-more-than-14-k-fees-after-making-hand-sanitizers/4098868001/

**UPDATE**

HHS announced later that they were going to waive the fees:

https://www.khq.com/news/health-human-services-direct-fda-to-waive-fines-for-distilleries-who-produced-hand-sanitizer-during/article_8a102f44-4bc8-11eb-b769-732f9824533f.html

Thats why my sanatizer smells like margaritas

5 years ago | Likes 1 Dislikes 0

Who cares, they make fortunes off booze sales in our War on Drugs nation.

5 years ago | Likes 1 Dislikes 0

As fucked up as that is, I can see where they were TRYING to do good with fees for other over the counter stuff. Just...not that. no.

5 years ago | Likes 1 Dislikes 0

No good deed goes unpunished and without monetary penalties.

5 years ago | Likes 1 Dislikes 0

WTF really

5 years ago | Likes 1 Dislikes 0

Can't even care without getting fined in America

5 years ago | Likes 6 Dislikes 1

Came for the outrage, stayed for the update

5 years ago | Likes 4 Dislikes 0

No reason to quell the outrage, the FDA should have caught this before they started sending out bills.

5 years ago | Likes 1 Dislikes 0

Jesus Christ.

5 years ago | Likes 1 Dislikes 0

Rile of Aquisition 285: No good deed ever goes unpunished.

5 years ago | Likes 2 Dislikes 0

Money does not exist.

5 years ago | Likes 0 Dislikes 0

I hope this goes away because whiskey scented hand sanitizer is the one thing I realized this year I never knew I wanted in life.

5 years ago | Likes 1 Dislikes 0

And fixed by this lady, Becky Harris, of Catoctin Creek. https://m.facebook.com/story.php?story_fbid=10158790869399076&id=98590104075

5 years ago | Likes 2 Dislikes 0

Ah Ha Ha, you thought the Rump would let you just help people for free?...'

5 years ago | Likes 1 Dislikes 0

No good deed goes unpunished.

5 years ago | Likes 670 Dislikes 4

“Sometimes the good you do doesn’t do you any good.” - Albert Einstein

5 years ago | Likes 3 Dislikes 0

The fees are being waived

5 years ago | Likes 5 Dislikes 0

And the world just fucking watched.

5 years ago | Likes 1 Dislikes 2

No, in this case the PIC waved the fees due to the special circumstances

5 years ago | Likes 2 Dislikes 0

I live by this.. honestly it seems sometimes you can't do right by some people something will bite you in the ass

5 years ago | Likes 26 Dislikes 0

Mostly government and Karens.

5 years ago | Likes 6 Dislikes 0

Untaxed*

5 years ago | Likes 3 Dislikes 0

I bought handsanny from my local distillery. Good and strong. I am glad they waived the fees.

5 years ago | Likes 1 Dislikes 0

If anyone still thinks America has you're best interest at heart, rereas this

5 years ago | Likes 2 Dislikes 1

Im guessing one of purell's or J&J's lobbyists were behind that one

5 years ago | Likes 1 Dislikes 0

We can fix this with more government and regulations

5 years ago | Likes 5 Dislikes 4

WE can fix this because WE pay them. THEY work for US.

5 years ago | Likes 2 Dislikes 0

I thought the bills passed by the GOP were suppose to help business stay afloat. You're telling them they're liars?? /s

5 years ago | Likes 1 Dislikes 0

Corrupt mother fuckers ffs.

5 years ago | Likes 1 Dislikes 0

WTF. Here in Aus, literally any distillery that had the capacity, made sanitiser for the healthcare world & 1/?

5 years ago | Likes 1 Dislikes 0

donated what they could & sold the rest to recoup costs. It was commended by the gov't, not reprimanded. 2/3

5 years ago | Likes 1 Dislikes 0

The USA is fucken weird with all it's stupid rules & regulations to protect the rich.. 3/3

5 years ago | Likes 2 Dislikes 0

I live in rural area outside Charlotte NC. We have 2 grocery stores for my county. That shit was god send. We didn't have ANYTHING to san.

5 years ago | Likes 170 Dislikes 2

Same in southwest VA / northeast TN area.

5 years ago | Likes 1 Dislikes 0

It was the same up around Boone/Wilkesboro, it was the only sanitizer I could find for months

5 years ago | Likes 24 Dislikes 0

Mystic distillery donated so much to folks around Durham and Orange County. It was amazing.

5 years ago | Likes 4 Dislikes 0

Rutherford Co., NC was the same. Blue Ridge Distilling Co., came through for our county.

5 years ago | Likes 9 Dislikes 0

Anson County for me. They CLOSED our Walmart at the start of this, just about a year ago. We have to go to Monroe or Rockingham for that.

5 years ago | Likes 6 Dislikes 0

I always knew the US government gave absolutely no fucks about the people, but the pandemic has really highlighted that fact glaringly.

5 years ago | Likes 511 Dislikes 7

You are sooo right

5 years ago | Likes 1 Dislikes 0

Nothing like a pandemic to expose the flaws in a system.

5 years ago | Likes 34 Dislikes 0

We also learned millions of Americans also give no fucks about people.

5 years ago | Likes 20 Dislikes 0

This feels like low level bureaucrats mindlessly following the rules until the outcry reached someone with authority to undo the stupid.

5 years ago | Likes 12 Dislikes 0

Im trying to coerce my wife into agreeing to moving our family to another country. I have absolutely no desire to stay here anymore.

5 years ago | Likes 4 Dislikes 1

correction; the GOP, not (entirely) the government as a whole.

5 years ago | Likes 2 Dislikes 0

Really taking notes on this. Gives you a good idea of how badly they're going to fuck us over when climate change really hits us.

5 years ago | Likes 10 Dislikes 0

Came up with any solutions in your notes? Asking for a friend

5 years ago | Likes 3 Dislikes 1

So far all I've got is 'destroy capitalism.' There's some doodles of rich people paying mercs to kill us all or put us in gulags. So no.

5 years ago | Likes 5 Dislikes 0

I'm onboard with that. Honestly at this point I think we need to make a discord server called Turtle Soup and get 1 mil members. To organize

5 years ago | Likes 2 Dislikes 0

Pinata ecomomics. It's the only way

5 years ago | Likes 5 Dislikes 0

According to the article, HHS has since struck down that fee (or at least declared their intention to do so)

5 years ago | Likes 17 Dislikes 0

Yeah the title was misleading

5 years ago | Likes 2 Dislikes 3

The title was accurate when posted -- HHS didn't announce until this afternoon that they were waiving the fees

5 years ago | Likes 2 Dislikes 0

Yeah, looks like they updated it since I posted but still shows a terrible lack of FDA leadership.

5 years ago | Likes 5 Dislikes 0

They just announced that they're going to waive the fees. It's ridiculous it ever happened to begin with but at least it seems it's fixed.

5 years ago | Likes 31 Dislikes 0

Like what jerkoff really attempted to enforce the fees?

5 years ago | Likes 4 Dislikes 0

Yeah for real. Who thought this was even remotely an okay thing to just send out.

5 years ago | Likes 2 Dislikes 0

(source: they updated the news article in the link in the main post)

5 years ago | Likes 6 Dislikes 0

“Seems” I’ve learned don’t believe anything until we’ll after it’s signed and done and any statute of limitations to go back and do it

5 years ago | Likes 3 Dislikes 0

That's totally fair.

5 years ago | Likes 1 Dislikes 0

Apparently, about half the country went ape shit when they found this out. HHS has got the FDA to back down. And rightly so.

5 years ago | Likes 118 Dislikes 1

5 years ago | Likes 52 Dislikes 0

Hand sanitizer is not a drug, wth were they even trying?

5 years ago | Likes 4 Dislikes 0

It's regulated. Issue was every distillery was jumping on the bandwagon wo FDA oversight giving them an inspection and go ahead. /1

5 years ago | Likes 6 Dislikes 1

Distilleries were (rightly) saying that people needed support, and essentially decided to say FU to the FDA and sell alcohol for /2

5 years ago | Likes 7 Dislikes 0

sanitation now and deal with the bullshit later. The bigger issue was that the FDA had so much shit to do they couldnt keep up, /3

5 years ago | Likes 5 Dislikes 0

so they just kind of went with it and agreed to back burner the issue. Now the issue has arisen again./

5 years ago | Likes 5 Dislikes 0

Yeah, actually it is. It's classified as an otc med in the US. That gives the FDA oversight to prevent dangerous products.

5 years ago | Likes 7 Dislikes 0

Reading up on it, it sounds like an oversight, in order to manufacture OTC meds, you have to be a registered facility, CARES (1/2)

5 years ago | Likes 24 Dislikes 0

fast tracked that registration (Almost waived, in fact), but someone forgot there are fees associated with that registration. (2/2)

5 years ago | Likes 19 Dislikes 0

And I am sure the fees are to pay for the milliseconds of processor time on the server to save the data when they applied online.

5 years ago | Likes 12 Dislikes 0

Quite a lot of manhours goes into the inspections abs paperwork processing under normal conditions.

5 years ago | Likes 4 Dislikes 0

I would imagine the fees are actually intended to be used for all the overhead that accompanies such registrations when it's not a pandemic.

5 years ago | Likes 9 Dislikes 0

Fuck America.

5 years ago | Likes 81 Dislikes 9

Yeah! This action represents all of america and all of its citizens! Fuck outta here

5 years ago | Likes 13 Dislikes 22

Bro/Sis - we gotta fight for rights! Always. Can't let the bastards grind us down!

5 years ago | Likes 7 Dislikes 1

I mean either it is a Democracy and represent at least a majority of the citizens or its not and its not, doesnt it?

5 years ago | Likes 7 Dislikes 1

Google "Gerrymandering" this and campaign donations from big businesses (aka: corruption) is the US political system.

5 years ago | Likes 1 Dislikes 1

It's not and doesnt. Its form of "democracy" allows the minority to retain power, such as when a minority elected Trump.

5 years ago | Likes 2 Dislikes 1

But that also means, as part of the majority that fought our worst and most damaging regime in history, I dont like being attacked for it.

5 years ago | Likes 2 Dislikes 1

Right if you say that the US are pretty undemocratic I fully agree with you, but most americans dont seem to agree

5 years ago | Likes 2 Dislikes 0

Which is part of the problem

5 years ago | Likes 2 Dislikes 0

That's fucked up. They were trying to help and stay afloat.

5 years ago | Likes 1009 Dislikes 3

I think it's more like old laws on the books and the parties involved were just going through the motions of what the laws said 1/2

5 years ago | Likes 1 Dislikes 0

there is a saying like "no good deed..."

5 years ago | Likes 1 Dislikes 0

Yep, they made it when it wasn't available anywhere else, my local distillery donated many gallons of it to various agencies

5 years ago | Likes 192 Dislikes 0

You think booze didnt sell during the pandemic?

5 years ago | Likes 12 Dislikes 48

You think it sold as much with bars and restaurants in lockdown?

5 years ago | Likes 47 Dislikes 0

Probably not. I didn't hear about a bunch closing their doors who made the most of the antiseptics. Sazerac and big whiskey companies

5 years ago | Likes 3 Dislikes 22

Small companies too, small breweries and distilleries. People trying to support their community, giving people something that was not ->

5 years ago | Likes 2 Dislikes 0

Available in any other way.

5 years ago | Likes 2 Dislikes 0

During the prohibition, yuengling made ice cream, coors did pottery, PBR made cheese and sold that part to kraft. Whatever works!

5 years ago | Likes 19 Dislikes 0

Wait, THATS why coors makes mortars?

5 years ago | Likes 7 Dislikes 0

Unrelated, apparently. Coorstek predates prohibition

5 years ago | Likes 4 Dislikes 0

Nope. Go to their history page under the about tab, coors didn't become coorstek till 2000. Directly related and how they survived.

5 years ago | Likes 2 Dislikes 0

Umm. Distilleries were going to be FINE during the pandemic. They didn’t need to do this. They did it to keep people safe.

5 years ago | Likes 12 Dislikes 1

There are smaller distilleries.

5 years ago | Likes 2 Dislikes 0

But the people in charge realized this was a special occasion and corrected the problem 2/2

5 years ago | Likes 2 Dislikes 0

Dude, these companies were printing money. My industrial isopropanol supplier went from 800 orders a day to 5000!

5 years ago | Likes 3 Dislikes 1

It wasn't even usable fucking hand sanitizer they made! It was peroxide in water with shitty alcohol in it, in clear bottles.

5 years ago | Likes 7 Dislikes 41

I bought sanitizing gel from my local distillery - smelled like cheap vodka, but it was 70% alcohol.

5 years ago | Likes 51 Dislikes 0

...vodka is (supposed to be) pure water and pure alcohol, so no surprises there

5 years ago | Likes 3 Dislikes 0

There are some where I live that straight up smell like mash. So nasty.

5 years ago | Likes 2 Dislikes 0

It was actually pretty much drinkablenif you left it in a clear bottle on the sun for a few hours, peroxide breaks down quickly into water

5 years ago | Likes 4 Dislikes 27

I just checked the label on mine - "Denatured alcohol", so it's not (safely) drinkable.

5 years ago | Likes 17 Dislikes 0

Not all distilleries made it the same, some were smart, some, like kentucky bluegrass, used ethyl alcohol

5 years ago | Likes 1 Dislikes 15

How do they do that? Upon Googling denatured alcohol - "add an obnoxious substance"; as in bad-tasting or poisonous?

5 years ago | Likes 1 Dislikes 0

I can't imagine that the glycerin and thickeners would be that tasty. I think I'll avoid drinking sanitizer.

5 years ago | Likes 24 Dislikes 0

Kentucky bluegrass distillery for example, their sanitizer is just water, peroxide, ethyl alcohol, and glycerin. An hour in light ruins it

5 years ago | Likes 1 Dislikes 12

You gotta put hand sanitizer on those crappy brown paper towels and let it sit with space below like tape it to the top of a cup 1

5 years ago | Likes 2 Dislikes 0

The propolyn glycol is the only other product, nothing else, it's not real sanitizer, it smells disgusting and it makes your hands sticky

5 years ago | Likes 2 Dislikes 5

I think galaxy wolf has drank more than his fair share of hand sanitizer

5 years ago | Likes 14 Dislikes 0

And propolyn glycol is an additive in alot of foods, I'm not saying drink sanitizer, but this stuff needed to be regulated better

5 years ago | Likes 1 Dislikes 6

If in the instance they did use glycerin, it's a sugar alcohol anyway, still relatively safe and tasteless.

5 years ago | Likes 1 Dislikes 11