OKLAHOMA CITY — The company that distributed some, if not all, of the hand sanitizer stored at three Bordwine Development sites in Grady County has ceased operations and filed for bankruptcy.
A flurry of complaints and lawsuits allege its products were contaminated with methanol blamed for several injuries and at least one death.
Methanol – which an industry trade association describes as “the simplest alcohol” – is “a chemical building block for hundreds of everyday products,” including plastics, paints, car parts and construction materials, and is used to fuel motor vehicles, ships, fuel cells, boilers and cook stoves.
4e Brands Northamerica LLC manufactured, marketed and sold personal care products throughout the United States. Among them were hand sanitizers marketed under 15 names, including various Blumen brand sanitizers, Assured brand hand sanitizers, and various other sanitizers, lotions and soaps.
Blumen Clear Advanced Hand Sanitizer was found at the scene of a fire last week in Ninnekah where Bordwine Development stored myriad pallets of the product, as well as lotions and soaps.
4e Brands Northamerica is a limited liability corporation that was created May 19, 2014. Its principal place of business is in San Antonio, Texas, but it is wholly owned by 4E Global S.A.P.I. de C.V., a subsidiary of Kimberly-Clark de México, S.A.B. de C.V.
4e Brands warehoused and distributed its products to third-party vendors, including large national retailers, “which then sold and further distributed the products throughout the United States.”
The company is “no longer operating,” according to David M. Dunn, chief restructuring officer of the company. The company filed for Chapter 11 in the U.S. Bankruptcy Court for the Southern District of Texas, Laredo Division, on Feb. 22, 2022, “to fully wind down its business.”
Sanitizers contained toxic methanol, lawsuits allege
All of the 4e Brands sanitizers have “an identical design defect,” New York attorney Philip L. Fraietta wrote. “They are defective because they are labeled as containing ethanol as the active ingredient, but are in fact contaminated with and contain methanol, which is toxic…” Exposure to methanol “can result in nausea, vomiting, headache, blurred vision, permanent blindness, seizures, coma, permanent damage to the nervous system, or death.”
Each of the 4e products is prominently labeled as a hand sanitizer and lists 70% ethyl alcohol on the back of the label as the “active ingredient,” Fraietta wrote. None of the products mentions or discloses that the products are “contaminated with methanol, or that the ‘active ingredient’ is in fact to a large extent methanol, not ethyl alcohol – or ‘ethanol’.”
The distinction is “critical,” Fraietta asserted in a class-action lawsuit filed two years ago in U.S. District Court for the Southern District of New York. Ethyl alcohol is an “accepted active ingredient” for hand sanitizers; methanol is a toxic substance that “cannot be consumed by or come in contact with humans” and makes the 4e products “worthless and unsuitable for use” as hand sanitizers.
At least one person died after ingesting 4e Brands sanitizer
Debra Stagner, who lives in Illinois, sued 4e Brands Northamerica and Sam’s East Inc. in federal court in Missouri last year after her daughter, Kayla Stagner, died May 30, 2020, from what the St. Louis County Medical Examiner’s office blamed on acute methanol intoxication.
The victim, Kayla Stagner, “who struggled with alcohol addiction,” drank several ounces of Blumen Advanced Instant Sanitizer Clear purchased at Sam’s East Inc., a corporation based in Bentonville, Arkansas. The Blumen product label claimed it contained as its active ingredient 70% ethyl alcohol, “the type of alcohol used in alcoholic beverages and which would not have been fatal in the amount” that Ms. Stagner drank, the lawsuit alleged.
Testing performed on the hand sanitizer done in connection with the woman’s autopsy revealed that it contained a fatal level of methanol, “a solvent and ingredient in antifreeze…”
The lawsuit was settled out of court earlier this year for an undisclosed amount of money, plus a structured settlement for the victim’s 13-year-old daughter. Nevertheless, Sam’s Club and 4e Brands “have denied, do deny and continue to deny any liability for the alleged damages sustained” by the Stagners.
Katherine Pepe, Patricia Donadio and June Vonderchek, all New York residents and clients of Philip Fraietta, filed a class-action complaint against 4e Brands Northamerica in New York federal district court two years ago.
Pepe and Vondercheck said they bought Blumen hand sanitizers, while Donadio said she bought Assured brand sanitizers and her hands “turned red as a side effect.” All three claimed they would not have purchased the products had they known the sanitizers were “unfit to perform their intended purchase and were inherently dangerous.”
That lawsuit was dismissed April 7, 2022, after the “matter in difference” in the legal action was “adjusted by and between the parties,” court records reflect.
Danish Farooq of Hayward, California, and Melody Callantine of Osceola, Indiana, both sued 4e because, they alleged, their minor children began vomiting after using Blumen hand sanitizer.
Gene Beauford of Brentwood, New York, alleged in his lawsuit against 4e Brands that he “suffers from vision issues, severe headaches, numbness in his hands, nausea and worsening eyesight” after using one of the company’s products.
Pandemic heightened demand for sanitizers
Customer demand for hand sanitizer products “drastically increased” after the onset of COVID-19 in early 2020, Dunn recalled. The “uptick in demand” placed a “significant strain” on the supply chain, including availability of primary raw materials used to manufacture 4e Brands products.
Therefore, the U.S. Food and Drug Administration temporarily allowed producers that were not registered as hand sanitizer manufacturers to make those products.
Consequently, 4e “accepted new ethanol suppliers,” Dunn related.
And like “many other hand sanitizer distributors,” the manufacturer of the products distributed by 4e “sourced some of its raw ingredients from opportunistic suppliers who, whether intentionally or mistakenly,” used methanol instead of ethyl alcohol in their product.
4e “did not know of the substitution,” Dunn said. The company thought the hand sanitizers they distributed were made with ethanol.
In June 2020, the FDA issued an initial warning to consumers about hand sanitizer products that contained methanol. The next month, the FDA released a statement warning consumers about the potential harm of using hand sanitizers containing methanol. Some of the complaints included dizziness and temporary blindness after exposure to hand sanitizer laced with methanol.
On July 8, 2020, the federal agency added 4e’s hand sanitizer to the list of products contaminated with methanol. The FDA recommended that 4e Brands issue a recall and imposed an import ban on many of the company’s products.
4e issued a voluntary recall on July 12, 2020, of some of its products due to the potential presence of methanol, and 12 days later issued recalls on all of its hand sanitizers – regardless of expiration date, container size, UPC or lot number.
Because of the contamination and recalls, 4e’s business operations ground to a halt.
“The majority of its inventory was deemed worthless and the corporation faced multiple class action, personal injury, and wrongful death lawsuits, as well as customer demands for refunds or replacement products,” Dunn wrote.
4e sanitizers stored in various warehouses
4e Brands is storing all of its recall hand sanitizer in “various warehouses in the United States” and is “working to destroy all of the contaminated hand sanitizer,” Dunn wrote, adding that 4e also is trying to export all non-contaminated product to parent 4e Global in Mexico.
The Southwest Ledger left a voice message for Bordwine Development’s legal counsel, Oklahoma City attorney Peter Scimeca, and sent an email to Dunn, asking both whether owner Brannan Bordwine had contracted with 4e Brands to warehouse numerous pallets of their hand sanitizer, lotion and soap at three sites in Grady County. The Ledger received no reply from either inquiry.
4e Brands “decided it was necessary” to file for bankruptcy “to consummate an orderly liquidation of the estate and adequately deal with all outstanding claims” against the company, Dunn wrote.