Health Damage by Beni-koji

Ministry of Health, Labor and Welfare (MHLW) announced that it found puberulic acid, a chemical compound made by blue mold, from the material used for their products of dietary supplement, called Beni-koji, produced by an Osaka-based drugmaker, Kobayashi Pharmaceutical. Kobayashi Pharma received a number of reports of health damage on the people who had ingested Beni-koji. Beni-koji had been registered as a food with function claims, a category of foods which was introduced as a measure of deregulation in Abenomics, the economic policy of former Prime Minister Shinzo Abe. Debate over the food safety was resumed with broad health damages brought by a pharmaceutical firm. 

The President of Kobayashi Pharma, Akihiro Kobayashi, apologized in his press conference that his company brought a major social problem. The company had confirmed five deaths and 114 hospitalized by March 28th. It also recognized that around 680 people went to hospitals.

 

They are supposed to have taken the supplement in some ways. The company argued that it had not identified whether the compound caused the damage on kidney, which the patients are suffering. The company is still investigation what happened in its process of the production.

 

It was March 22nd, when Kobayashi Pharma announced that it would recall its products containing beni-koji, meaning red yeast rice, because some consumers of those products suffered from kidney disease. While the company voluntary started the recall, Osaka Municipal Government ordered Kobayashi Pharma to retrieve one million packages of three kinds of products with beni-koji. MHLW confirmed that the most sufferers took one of those products made in last September or later.

 

The Minister for Consumer Affairs and Food Safety, Hanako Jimi, announced that the Consumer Affairs Agency would make urgent examination on around 6800 products, which had been registered as the foods with function claims. The food producers can describe function of their food on the label, if they explain its effects on health or scientific evidence to the agency. The products of Kobayashi Pharma were some of the foods with function claims, labeling that they would lower cholesterol.

 

While “foods for specified uses” is require to pass governmental examinations, food companies can deliver ”foods with function claims” only with reporting to the government. It is argued that Abe administration loosened the regulation of foods for creating new business chance for the food industries. There are doubts on the food with function claims that their functions are not fully proved.

 

Some countries in the world, including China and Republic of Korea, stopped import or warned the consumers not to take beni-koji. Although Abe administration hoped Japan to glitter in the center of the world, its deregulation policy might have resulted in exacerbating reputation of Japanese foods.

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