Inmates told VICE that they're really just putting a mysterious vendor's existing product in 'NYS Clean' bottles.
On March 9, New York governor Andrew Cuomo announced a measure to fight egregious price-gouging: an initiative to produce 100,000 gallons of New York State-produced hand sanitizer every week, to be distributed for free to needy institutions like schools, government agencies, prisons, and the MTA.
We are problem solvers, state of New York, Empire State, progressive capital of the nation, Cuomo said during a press conference, before opening a navy curtain and literally unveiling jugs of the NYS Clean-branded sanitizer, made conveniently by the state of New York.
But according to workers at Great Meadow Correctional Facility in Comstock, New York where the hand sanitizer is being made, as well as a spokesperson for the prison system, they are doing nothing more than taking existing hand sanitizer and rebottling it into packaging labeled NYS Clean.