A number of health food in question
By admin on 2014-12-29

The country's leading medical and food safety experts are urging manufacturers of health food products to clean up their act, while calling for stricter official oversight, as a number of items were found containing main components of prescription drugs, including Viagra, a medicine that boosts sexual prowess in men, reports say.

Zhong Nanshan, an academician at the Chinese Academy of Engineering, lambasted some manufacturers of anti-fatigue and weight-loss foods Tuesday, accusing them of putting drugs into goods registered under the category of health food products, an action that is prohibited by law.

"But this practice has been quite severe in Guangdong Province and even in the whole southern China region," said Zhong, also chairman of the Respiratory Committee of the Chinese Medical Association, and medical consultant to the World Health Organization.

He gained fame in leading the national fight against SARS in 2003,

Some ambitious businesses put drug supplements into their products in hopes of strengthening their effectiveness, thereby significantly boosting sales.

Zhong, who is also a NPC deputy, said he plans to submit his proposals at the annual session for the country's legislators, which starts tomorrow in Beijing, to optimize the current approval and monitoring mechanism, according to the Southern Metropolis Daily..

Zhang Yongsheng, of the Guangzhou Food and Drug Bureau, said that to make the products more effective, sibutramin, a chemical that is used for weight loss, is added into weight-loss pills; and Sildenafil, a main ingredient of Viagra, is added to anti-fatigue health products, the Guangzhou Daily reported in February.

Experts said the unauthorized health products could cause headaches, indigestion and skin disease.

The most recent nationwide sales figures for health foods date back to late 2007, when total sales exceeded 100 billion yuan ($14.7 billion), according to Sang Liwei, a lawyer who was involved in the revision of China's Food Safety Law that went into effect in June.

About 9,000 licensed items sold as health foods, produced by more than 1,600 enterprises nationwide, can be found at various outlet stores, including pharmacies and supermarkets, Sang said.

Zhao Ziheng, the owner of a drug store in Suzhou, East China's Jiangsu Province, said sales of health food products account for more than 20 percent of his total revenue.

"Health food products with fatigue-resistance and weigh-loss features, as well as supplements such as vitamins, are always among the best selling items," Zhao said.

He said some sex shops and stores might sell lesser-known brands of questionable quality that could be dangerous when mixed with other drugs.

"It is much worse (than average food-safety problems) because such illegal production can easily slip by supervisors unnoticed," Zhong said, adding that the existing monitoring done by authorities is also flawed.

The State Food and Drug Administration has been authorized since July 2005 to issue licenses for health food products sold in the country.

The administration operates under the Ministry of Health, which used to handle food and drug issues, but Sang said the transfer of responsibilities from health authorities to the new administration wasn't completed at the provincial level.

"The handover was chaotic," he recalled. "The job was taken by health authorities in some places and by the food and drug bureaus in some others, or by both, or by neither," Sang said.

"There might be 2,000 different systems in 2,000 counties across the country."

Many of the industry associations grow out of governmental bodies, but they aren't believed to adequately fullfill their functions of self-regulation and supervision, Sang noted.

The regional protectionism is very serious in many places in the supervision of food safety, which fosters "not doing" or "wrongdoing" of concerned authorities, Sang said.

"If any incident happens, the local officials try to cover it up, as it would be detrimental to their performance."