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Next time I recommend spending more than a moment, then. The linked article does not contain any evidence whatsoever of accidental methanol poisoning which resu

Next time I recommend spending more than a moment, then. The linked article does not contain any evidence whatsoever of accidental methanol poisoning which resulted from improper distillation of fruit or grain mash. They call out the "fake or unknown content" for a reason.

viraptor 2y ago
They specifically mention "homemade vodka" in the paper, which would mean grains. The whole case report title contains "due to home distillation of methanol". There's a chance they weren't precise with the vodka description, but then we're just guessing the source itself is incorrect... that's path to madness.
- saithound 2y ago
  I don't think we're guessing anything: the source does not state or even imply that this was accidental methanol poisoning which resulted from improper distillation of fruit or grain mash, i.e. that these people died because somebody made an innocent, accidental mistake while distilling mash. Even if that was what happened (it wasn't, see the last point), we would not be able to find that out from a medical case report, because: - The medical personnel are not cops and have no means to investigate any of this. They have no access to the equipment used to distill the alcohol, and even if they had, no reason to mess around with it instead of doing their jobs curing people. But even if they had the inclination, they have no particular scientific expertise in distillation, and no forensic lab to determine what happened. - Even if the "home-made vodka" description is accurate, it doesn't imply that they made the drink themselves. They could have purchased it from somebody who made it at home and laced it. For a representative case, see Sterno: people were cutting their moonshine with it since it was cheap and contained only 3% methanol. This was short-term safe when mixed and consumed along with ethanol (due to metabolic reasons). In the early 70s the company behind Sterno changed the formulation to 54% methanol, and 36 people died. - Even if the people involved made the drink themselves for their own consumption, they may have introduced methanol into their drink in ways they are not willing to admit to (e.g. methanol stolen fron a workplace or from a tank trailer, mistaken for ethanol because they look and smell identical). They are especially unlikely to admit to this if they deteriorate rapidly and expire shortly after arrival. - They may have consumed unrelated methanol instead of their home made vodka due to a simple mistake (e.g. if they stored different alcohols in similar plastic bottles and grabbed the wrong bottle). - To the best of our knowledge, there is no plausible chemistry which would allow this to happen, no plausible sequence of actions which could be taken accidentally during distillation of grain mash and would produce enough methanol to off 3 people like this. No, foreshot does not work, see upthread. This is understood quite well (again, home distillation is legal in many first world countries), and why methanol poisoning triggers a criminal investigation almost everywhere. Given this, a claim to the contrary from a medical case study would not be sufficient. You'd need, at the very least, an article from a forensic chemist explaining how it was determined that accidental methanol poisoning resulted from improper distillation of fruit or grain mash, and what preciously unseen freak constellation of events resulted in this outcome, when the chemistry says there's no way to achieve this outcome accidentally. But again, the article you linked does not claim that these 3 deaths were caused by an accidental mistake during distillation, so the whole point is moot.
  - viraptor 2y ago
    > Even if the "home-made vodka" description is accurate, it doesn't imply that they made the drink themselves. It's explicit and spelled out in the first quote I posted. They made it themselves.
    - quickthrowman 2y ago
      They claimed to have made it themselves, to be more specific. There is no concrete proof, just someone making an unproven claim. People lie all the time, especially to doctors. If the person you’re responsing to is correct, either they stumbled across an unknown method of grain distillation that generated unheard of amounts of methanol, or they’re lying. Which scenario is more likely?

viraptor 2y ago

They specifically mention "homemade vodka" in the paper, which would mean grains. The whole case report title contains "due to home distillation of methanol". There's a chance they weren't precise with the vodka description, but then we're just guessing the source itself is incorrect... that's path to madness.

saithound 2y ago
I don't think we're guessing anything: the source does not state or even imply that this was accidental methanol poisoning which resulted from improper distillation of fruit or grain mash, i.e. that these people died because somebody made an innocent, accidental mistake while distilling mash. Even if that was what happened (it wasn't, see the last point), we would not be able to find that out from a medical case report, because: - The medical personnel are not cops and have no means to investigate any of this. They have no access to the equipment used to distill the alcohol, and even if they had, no reason to mess around with it instead of doing their jobs curing people. But even if they had the inclination, they have no particular scientific expertise in distillation, and no forensic lab to determine what happened. - Even if the "home-made vodka" description is accurate, it doesn't imply that they made the drink themselves. They could have purchased it from somebody who made it at home and laced it. For a representative case, see Sterno: people were cutting their moonshine with it since it was cheap and contained only 3% methanol. This was short-term safe when mixed and consumed along with ethanol (due to metabolic reasons). In the early 70s the company behind Sterno changed the formulation to 54% methanol, and 36 people died. - Even if the people involved made the drink themselves for their own consumption, they may have introduced methanol into their drink in ways they are not willing to admit to (e.g. methanol stolen fron a workplace or from a tank trailer, mistaken for ethanol because they look and smell identical). They are especially unlikely to admit to this if they deteriorate rapidly and expire shortly after arrival. - They may have consumed unrelated methanol instead of their home made vodka due to a simple mistake (e.g. if they stored different alcohols in similar plastic bottles and grabbed the wrong bottle). - To the best of our knowledge, there is no plausible chemistry which would allow this to happen, no plausible sequence of actions which could be taken accidentally during distillation of grain mash and would produce enough methanol to off 3 people like this. No, foreshot does not work, see upthread. This is understood quite well (again, home distillation is legal in many first world countries), and why methanol poisoning triggers a criminal investigation almost everywhere. Given this, a claim to the contrary from a medical case study would not be sufficient. You'd need, at the very least, an article from a forensic chemist explaining how it was determined that accidental methanol poisoning resulted from improper distillation of fruit or grain mash, and what preciously unseen freak constellation of events resulted in this outcome, when the chemistry says there's no way to achieve this outcome accidentally. But again, the article you linked does not claim that these 3 deaths were caused by an accidental mistake during distillation, so the whole point is moot.
- viraptor 2y ago
  > Even if the "home-made vodka" description is accurate, it doesn't imply that they made the drink themselves. It's explicit and spelled out in the first quote I posted. They made it themselves.
  - quickthrowman 2y ago
    They claimed to have made it themselves, to be more specific. There is no concrete proof, just someone making an unproven claim. People lie all the time, especially to doctors. If the person you’re responsing to is correct, either they stumbled across an unknown method of grain distillation that generated unheard of amounts of methanol, or they’re lying. Which scenario is more likely?