Methanol content in homemade alcohol from a province in North Vietnam.

INTRODUCTION AND AIMS: Methanol poisonings pose a major risk especially where illegal alcohol is consumed. The source of the methanol in the drinks are debated. We aimed to evaluate whether home distillation of alcohol made from rice was capable of producing toxic amounts of methanol.

DESIGN AND METHODS: Twenty households with homemade alcohol production in Phu Tho province in Vietnam were included in this pilot study. We followed the whole production process and an alcohol sample from each household was analysed for methanol content.

RESULTS: 17 (85%) of the samples contained detectable levels of methanol. The median concentration was 9 mg/L (range 2-37 mg/L). To develop clinical symptoms of methanol poisoning from the sample with the highest concentration would require drinking more than 424 L.

DISCUSSION AND CONCLUSIONS: Homemade alcohol from rice did not contain sufficient amount of methanol to cause toxicity in our study. This supports the theory of methanol being added to ethanol post production for economical purposes as the main source of mass poisonings.