China Food and Drug Administration (CFDA) has announced that 69 medical wines produced by 51 businesses have illegally added chemicals, including sildenafil, causing many to be concerned about the safety of traditional Chinese medicines in the country.
Some of the businesses involved in the scandal include known brands like Hainan Yedao Group, which produces deer-tortoise wine.
One of the most prominent drugs found in the medical wines is sildenafil, which is used to treat erectile dysfunction in men. It is the main ingredient in the popular drug Viagra by U.S. pharmaceutical company Pfizer Inc.
This is not the first time medical wines have been found with illegal additives. Healthcare foods are often tainted with additives, especially sexual stimulants or prescription weight-loss drugs.
In 2014, several wines produced in Hebei and Guangxi have been found to contain erectile dysfunction drugs.
Back on June 2, a sting on a wine factory in Liuzhou, Guangxi, found that several products contained erectile dysfunction drugs.
On June 23, authorities inspected a wine factory and found their medical wines to contain several illegally added chemicals, including erectile dysfunction drugs.
Despite the lack of approved health benefits, there is still a strong market for these medical wines.
Regulators have often run into problems in cross-regional inspection, as more medical wines are being sold over the Internet. At present, there are no rules in China that prevent the selling of healthcare products over the Internet.
According to Wang Zhong, deputy secretary-general of the China Health Care Association, adding western drugs to health products and common food products is illegal.
However, many who make traditional Chinese medicine add Western medicine to their products because traditional Chinese medicine does not have the immediate effects that Western medicine does, he added.