By Eric Brand

Today a colleague alerted us to the fact that a popular “patent medicine” known as Po Chai was recently recalled in Hong Kong, Macau and Singapore. Po Chai pills, called Bao Ji Wan in Mandarin, are one of the most famous OTC products in the TCM world. The recall was not related to their main product, the familiar small red Po Chai pills that are packaged in little vials, but rather centered on an encapsulated product that was limited to the markets of Hong Kong, Singapore, and Macau. The recall was triggered by the discovery that the pills were spiked with pharmaceutical drugs for weight loss.

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Given the crazy diversity of prepared medicines on the Asian market, why blog about a random recall in Hong Kong? First and foremost, this particular recall was noteworthy because of the size and reputation of the supplier that it affected. Most tales of tainted products are related to small factories that had little in the way of reputation to begin with, whereas Po Chai pills are one of the most famous Hong Kong products of all time. The traditional Po Chai product is a complex recipe that is similar to “Curing Pills,” basically a catch-all remedy for digestive discomfort, hangover, diarrhea, nausea, and any other mild disorder caused by damp obstruction of the middle burner. Po Chai is extremely prevalent in the West as well as in Hong Kong, and it is basically the #1 “purse remedy” for indigestion among the Cantonese population. Every typical Chinatown pharmacy stocks Po Chai and many Western practitioners have been turned on to it- the simple, “good for everything” nature of Po Chai pills accounts for their popularity, and basically they are pretty effective as far as simple OTC products go. The only other proprietary Chinese herbal product that could rival Po Chai’s international fame is the Nim Jiom brand of fritillaria and loquat syrup (Chuan Bei Pi Pa Gao), so a Po Chai recall is really earthshaking news.

Normally, there would be no reason to spike Po Chai with drugs in the first place. Po Chai is basically full of aromatic herbs that awaken the spleen and promote movement and transformation, and there isn’t really any class of pharmaceutical drugs that could help it work its traditional magic. Clearly the manufacturers were taking Po Chai in a new direction by making a weight loss product, and their original product is probably perfectly safe. Given the size of their company and their strong reputation, it is really surprising that they would knowingly take the significant risk of selling an adulterated product. It is possible that they didn’t know the product was adulterated, but the entire thing is quite suspicious.

Chinese medicine suffers each time scandals of tainted products surface. Impurities and adulterants have rocked the world of modern pharmaceuticals and Western herbs as well, but the foreign nature of Chinese herbal products makes negative attention seem to stick more than it does when there is a scandal over biomedical drugs. Adulterants in herbal products have significantly complicated the regulatory environment for herbs in the West, and China’s poor public image causes many of our patients to express concern over Chinese products in general. While tainted products are actually quite rare given the massive scale of manufacturing in China, the negative press from the milk scandal or the heparin scandal causes all companies that work with China to expend significant PR efforts that would be unnecessary elsewhere.

Ultimately, we all depend on China for our herbs. Commercial sources of Chinese herbs that have been cultivated domestically remain relatively rare, and little effort goes into the sustainable domestication of animals or collection of minerals for TCM use outside of China. While a few farms run by wonderful growers have started to raise Chinese herbs here in the U.S., it will be years before the farmers perfect their cultivation techniques and processing techniques enough to truly compete with the Chinese products (even if price was taken out of the equation). Regardless of where the finished products are produced, most of the raw materials used in Chinese medicine come from China and the vast majority of these raw materials are safe for use. Unfortunately, good suppliers suffer the consequences when anyone in the same industry cuts corners and produces a scandal.

These recall reports from Hong Kong are a constant reminder that vigilant quality control is always necessary. Po Chai was made by one of the giants in the industry, which shows that even the biggest names are not immune to quality control problems. In another example, Hong Kong also recently issued a recall on a batch of granule formulas from a prominent Taiwanese company that surpassed the limits for lead. These recalls were more troubling than typical cases because they came from brands that we know and trust.

At Blue Poppy, we have always prized ourselves on quality control. We are the only company in the industry to use third-party testing for every batch of every product that we produce, and we carefully control our manufacturing process so that our customers can have complete confidence in the safety of our products. Our products do not contain any pharmaceuticals, dyes, or unnecessary fillers, and each batch of each product has been tested by an independent lab for pesticide residues, microbiological contaminants, and pesticide residues (our testing is done by the world-renowned Swiss company SGS). We take quality control very seriously and we work hard to ensure that our products are always safe and effective.

For links to the articles on Po Chai, click here and here