METHANOL MAKES EUROPE TREMBLE: THE CZECH REPUBLIC GOVERNMENT PROHIBITS THE SALE OF ALCOHOL OVER 20° AFTER THE MINISTRY OF HEALTH CONFIRMED THE DEATH OF 20 PEOPLE BY INTOXICATION FROM METHANOL. IN ITALY A WOMAN DIED IN GELA

It was 1986 when the scandal of methanol wine shocked Italy: 23 people died from methanol poisoning. Since then, the rules, controls and security in the wine industry in Italy and in Europe, have made great advances. Yet the ghost of methanol has returned to threaten the Old World. It all started in the Czech Republic, where the government, starting September 14th, has banned any drink that has more than 20% of alcohol by volume, after the Ministry of Health certified the death of 20 people, and other 36 others poisoned from consumption of "methanol" alcoholic drinks.
It then spread to Poland, where the Parliament has imposed a halt to imports of alcoholic beverages from the nearby Czech Republic for a month. This is the last chapter of a story yet to be defined and we must quickly grasp the scope and extent of the infection, as the latest event comes from Italy, where a 43-year-old woman died after drinking the fateful methanol wine. We need not jump immediately to conclusions, even though the hospital "Vittorio Emanuele" in Gela did not leak any doubt about the type of food poisoning that struck the caregiver.