The Japanese Consumer Agency said on the 12th thatMegabucksjackpotAffected by the incident of Kobayashi Pharmaceutical Company's problematic health products containing Monascus ingredients, they carried out emergency inspections on thousands of functionally labeled foods and found hundreds of cases of health damage to consumers.
After the exposure of the Kobayashi Pharmaceutical problematic health products incident, the Japanese Consumer Agency conducted an overall survey of about 1700 manufacturers involved in nearly 6800 products filed, asking the manufacturers whether they had received information about consumer health damage from doctors and other channels, and checked the collection of relevant information and the mechanism for reporting to the government.
According to Japanese media reports, the deadline for the survey was 12, and the Japanese Consumer Agency received responses from nearly 1400 manufacturers on more than 5500 functionally labeled foods. Statistics released by the Japanese Consumer Agency on the same day showed that excluding Kobayashi Pharmaceutical products, a total of 11 manufacturers received information on 117 health damage cases, involving 18 products.
It is reported that there are no deaths in the 117 cases of health damage, most of them are mild diseases such as diarrhea and eczema, and there are several cases that require hospitalization because of serious conditions. The Japanese Consumer Agency did not release a specific product name because it has not yet confirmed the causal relationship between the related products and consumers' health damage. The Japanese Consumer Agency plans to listen to the manufacturer's explanation and invite experts to conduct a medical evaluation in order to thoroughly comb through the results of this survey.
The Kobayashi Pharmaceutical problem Health products incident is the first time that manufacturers have recalled products due to health damage to consumers since the introduction of a functionally labeled food system in Japan in 2015. Under this system, manufacturers only need to submit scientific evidence consistent with their claimed functions to the Japanese Consumer Agency for filing before the products are put on the market, without the approval of government departments.
The Kobayashi Pharmaceutical problem Health products incident exposed the safety risks of Japan's functional labeling food system. On the basis of this investigation, the Japanese Consumer Agency plans to discuss and revise the relevant system, including making it an obligation for manufacturers to report information related to health damage.