A middle-school teacher in Virginia says she had no clue she was being slowly poisoned with hand sanitizer that was being surreptitiously added to her tea by two of her students, but says she has been feeling ill for some time.

On tonight's Colbert Report, Stephen Colbert took a hard line on the new trend of teens drinking hand sanitizer to get drunk. The trend is dangerous and it's coming for your kids, even if you don't have any. But fear not, for Colbert has the perfect solution: hide your Purell in a secure vault and wash off your hands with vodka.

Teens, the adolescent versions of Baby Geniuses, are known for having great ideas.

The New York Daily News reports that the Occupy Wall Street protesters of New York City—the most hygienically sound municipality in all of North America—need to start using hand sanitizer if they wish to avoid succumbing to infection and disease-death. (The same paper once reported that hand sanitizer is a lie, but don't let that stop you from using it.)

Doctors at a hospital in Australia wrote a letter to the editor of The Medical Journal of Australia that describes a scary new trend ravaging their country: People getting fucked up on hand sanitizer (four instances makes it a trend, right?). But one recent patient, who was being treated for epigastric pain due to excessive drinking, took it to another level:

A new survey finds most people think hand sanitizer works for an hour or more. Actually, it only protects for two minutes. "The best germicidal thing you can do is wash with soap and water," says a doc. [NYDN]

Sure, you may be really worried about contracting swine flu and then spending the next couple of weeks confined to bed (or worse). But do you know who is totally psyched that Americans are in a state of panic about H1N1? Executives at Johnson & Johnson! It's J&J that makes Purell hand sanitizer. And it's making a fortune now that we're all buying the mystery goo by the truckload. It's even offsetting the fact that we're no longer showering as much as we used to.

You didn't think there was anything good that could possibly come from the spread of swine flu, did you? You were wrong! If you happen to work in one of the dozen or so office buildings owned by Trinity Real Estate, you're going to be getting free hand sanitizer starting next week. Exciting! Are you one of the lucky ones? If you work in one of these buildings, cross off Purell off your shopping list, stat. [City Room]