{"id":692930,"date":"2026-07-15T12:13:11","date_gmt":"2026-07-15T12:13:11","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/692930\/"},"modified":"2026-07-15T12:13:11","modified_gmt":"2026-07-15T12:13:11","slug":"travellers-warned-of-methanol-poisoning-risks-in-new-campaign","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/692930\/","title":{"rendered":"Travellers warned of methanol poisoning risks in new campaign"},"content":{"rendered":"

When Calum MacDonald visited a bar in Laos he experienced “a blinding kaleidoscopic light” permanently impairing his vision, less than two days after having a drink. <\/p>\n

He was poisoned by methanol in 2024, and has since joined a UK government campaign, external<\/a> to raise awareness of the risks that turned his life upside down.<\/p>\n

MacDonald, who is in his 20s and from Surrey, told BBC Breakfast he was unaware of the dangers when travelling and if he had known “I probably would be in a different situation today”.<\/p>\n

Methanol is a highly toxic industrial strength form of alcohol that can sometimes be found in counterfeit, illegally produced or contaminated alcoholic drinks. <\/p>\n

As little as 30ml – about a single shot – can be fatal to an adult, while smaller amounts can cause serious and permanent harm, including blindness. <\/p>\n

Twenty-nine destinations now carry methanol poisoning warnings on UK government travel advice, including popular tourist destinations such as Indonesia, Laos and Vietnam. <\/p>\n

Among those to die after consuming methanol was Margaret McKie’s 38-year-old daughter Kirsty.<\/p>\n

Kirsty, originally from Stockport, was living in Bali and engaged to a man who owned a wine business and restaurant, so was cautious about only buying alcohol from reputable suppliers. <\/p>\n

“When Kirsty became ill it didn’t occur to her for a second that [methanol poisoning] was what could be wrong,” McKie told BBC Breakfast. <\/p>\n

“She was fairly tired, she’d been working hard, she’d had a couple of drinks, she just thought she had a hangover, she didn’t seek help and when she lost consciousness her fiance got her to the hospital and by that point it was too late to save her.” <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"When Calum MacDonald visited a bar in Laos he experienced “a blinding kaleidoscopic light” permanently impairing his vision,…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":692931,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3],"tags":[59,57,58,50,56,54,55],"class_list":["post-692930","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-united-kingdom","tag-gb","tag-great-britain","tag-greatbritain","tag-news","tag-uk","tag-united-kingdom","tag-unitedkingdom"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/692930","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=692930"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/692930\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/692931"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=692930"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=692930"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=692930"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}