'Health' pills using fetuses, report says
By Dong Zhen |
August 10, 2011, Wednesday
|
Print Edition
Print Edition
HEALTH-CARE capsules using aborted fetuses are being produced underground in China and sold in South Korea, a Seoul media report said over the weekend, and Chinese health authorities said yesterday they would launch an immediate investigation.
Seoul Broadcasting Station (SBS), a television and radio network, in a TV news report on Saturday evening said the health-care capsules were stuffed with powders made from fetuses and the drug mills were found in northeast China's Jilin Province.
SBS supported the report with a video clip allegedly from the reporting crew's site investigation. The reporters said they had traced some of the fetal materials to Chinese hospitals that sold them to the manufacturers.
The news stunned the Chinese public yesterday after it was reported in domestic media. The story spread quickly among the online community in China, and the "human-flesh capsule" became one of the most-discussed topics on social-networking websites.
Xia Yun, a Traditional Chinese Medicine doctor with the Shanghai No.10 People's Hospital, told Shanghai Daily yesterday that TCM has never acknowledged any health-improvement function of fetuses or infant flesh, let alone use of them as herbal medicine ingredients.
'Crazy' ideas
"It's crazy and nonsense to believe in such ideas!" she said.
Xia said that some sanitized placentas are legally allowed to be used for producing some herbal drugs. In TCM medical theory, placenta is believed to be helpful in relieving asthma and other diseases, as well as improving kidney function.
Licensed drug manufacturers are allowed to get safety-certified placentas from hospitals, but Chinese law prohibits hospitals from charging money for them.
Deng Haihua, a spokesman of the Chinese Ministry of Health, said at a news conference yesterday that the ministry "is paying close attention" to the South Korean report.
The ministry has ordered the Jiling Province health watchdog to launch an investigation immediately.
He said the procedures to handle dead infants and fetuses are clearly and strictly regulated by Chinese law. Hospitals and clinics are banned from disposing of them as normal medical waste, he said.
Bodies of dead infants and fetuses are considered human corpses and should be treated and cremated the same way, according to law, he added.
And trading human bodies and organs is strictly prohibited by law in China, he stressed.
Drug mill video
The spokesman said the ministry has also ordered regional health watchdogs across the country to investigate their local medical facilities and hospitals to discover and crack down on any illegal treatment and trading of infant corpses and fetuses.
In the TV report, titled "the truth about human-flesh capsules," the reporters said they had traveled to China and videotaped the manufacturing process at a drug mill. In the video clip, materials that look like human hairs and nail scraps could be seen inside the capsules as they were being made.
The report also quoted some "insiders" claiming such products boost energy and the immune system. The capsules were packaged in highly decorated boxes and sold in South Korea for about 10 times what they cost in China.
The reporters said samples were sent for testing by South Korean government agencies, and the result showed the capsule powders were a 99.7 percent match for human DNA.
The South Korean media urged its people to learn from the event and cool down their escalating fever to pursue health-care products.
Seoul Broadcasting Station (SBS), a television and radio network, in a TV news report on Saturday evening said the health-care capsules were stuffed with powders made from fetuses and the drug mills were found in northeast China's Jilin Province.
SBS supported the report with a video clip allegedly from the reporting crew's site investigation. The reporters said they had traced some of the fetal materials to Chinese hospitals that sold them to the manufacturers.
The news stunned the Chinese public yesterday after it was reported in domestic media. The story spread quickly among the online community in China, and the "human-flesh capsule" became one of the most-discussed topics on social-networking websites.
Xia Yun, a Traditional Chinese Medicine doctor with the Shanghai No.10 People's Hospital, told Shanghai Daily yesterday that TCM has never acknowledged any health-improvement function of fetuses or infant flesh, let alone use of them as herbal medicine ingredients.
'Crazy' ideas
"It's crazy and nonsense to believe in such ideas!" she said.
Xia said that some sanitized placentas are legally allowed to be used for producing some herbal drugs. In TCM medical theory, placenta is believed to be helpful in relieving asthma and other diseases, as well as improving kidney function.
Licensed drug manufacturers are allowed to get safety-certified placentas from hospitals, but Chinese law prohibits hospitals from charging money for them.
Deng Haihua, a spokesman of the Chinese Ministry of Health, said at a news conference yesterday that the ministry "is paying close attention" to the South Korean report.
The ministry has ordered the Jiling Province health watchdog to launch an investigation immediately.
He said the procedures to handle dead infants and fetuses are clearly and strictly regulated by Chinese law. Hospitals and clinics are banned from disposing of them as normal medical waste, he said.
Bodies of dead infants and fetuses are considered human corpses and should be treated and cremated the same way, according to law, he added.
And trading human bodies and organs is strictly prohibited by law in China, he stressed.
Drug mill video
The spokesman said the ministry has also ordered regional health watchdogs across the country to investigate their local medical facilities and hospitals to discover and crack down on any illegal treatment and trading of infant corpses and fetuses.
In the TV report, titled "the truth about human-flesh capsules," the reporters said they had traveled to China and videotaped the manufacturing process at a drug mill. In the video clip, materials that look like human hairs and nail scraps could be seen inside the capsules as they were being made.
The report also quoted some "insiders" claiming such products boost energy and the immune system. The capsules were packaged in highly decorated boxes and sold in South Korea for about 10 times what they cost in China.
The reporters said samples were sent for testing by South Korean government agencies, and the result showed the capsule powders were a 99.7 percent match for human DNA.
The South Korean media urged its people to learn from the event and cool down their escalating fever to pursue health-care products.
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