Japanese pharmaceutical giant Kobayashi has been rocked for months by a scandal involving fatal poisonings caused by the consumption of its food supplements based on red yeast rice, or beni who.
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The poisoning, which caused serious kidney problems, has already caused the deaths of seventy-six people, the company admitted on Friday, June 28. On June 30, Yoshitaka Isaka, vice-president of the Japanese Society of Nephrology, explained that 85% of the hundred or so victims who did not die would suffer lifelong after-effects.
Kobayashi is also in the sights of the Ministry of Health, which criticizes him for his lack of cooperation and responsiveness, an attitude described as « regrettable » by Minister Keizo Takemi : “The investigation cannot remain in Kobayashi’s hands. The ministry will take charge of it. »
Wind of panic
The first alert came in mid-January. Doctors reported kidney problems to Kobayashi in patients who had taken dietary supplements, in this case Beni Koji Choleste Help, which was supposed to reduce “bad” LDL cholesterol. However, the alert went unanswered, and it was not until March that the company reported five deaths to the government. At the same time, it announced a recall of the offending products.
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It took several injunctions from the ministry for the family-owned group, founded in 1886 in Osaka, to release more information. Kobayashi cited difficulties in establishing a link between health problems and the consumption of its products. Since the March revelations, the group has investigated 1,656 consultations, 289 hospitalizations and 170 deaths. Of these 170 deaths, 76 are therefore linked to the consumption of its products.
The case has sparked panic because Kobayashi sells its yeast – a traditional product used in Asia as a dietary supplement, flavor enhancer or coloring agent in sake, miso and traditional medicine – to 173 companies in Japan and two in Taiwan. The Taiwanese groups have recalled 154 products containing it as a precaution, Taipei said.
Blue mold
The cause of the poisoning itself is slow to be established precisely. One of the first five reported victims had not consumed any. The deaths are believed to be due to contamination with puberulic acid, a naturally occurring toxic compound derived from a blue mold found in the Osaka factory where the incriminated products came out between April and October 2023. The aging factory was closed in December. The production of the ingredients for red yeast rice is now done in Wakayama Prefecture (West).
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