If you were a  kid in the 1970s, chances are you had a parent who dabbed mercurochrome on your boo-boos when you skinned a knee or scraped up your elbow after attempting to do a “wheelie” on your bike. Or maybe one of your friends’ moms used the stuff, known for its telltale red stains it would leave on the skin -which lingered even after repeated washings. It was kind of a “badge” to have one of these red stains on your skin as a kid (my mother never used the stuff, but I did see plenty of other kids with red-stained skin). Why don’t you see it in people’s first aid “arsenals” anymore?

As its name implies, mercurochrome contains mercury. In 1998, the FDA reclassified merbromin (scientific name for mercurochrome) from “generally recognized as safe” to “untested,” effectively halting its distribution within the United States. Sales were subsequently halted in Brazil (2001), Germany (2003), and France (2006).