Probe into placenta capsules case

The market watchdog, health commission and police in the Pudong New Area are looking into a case where an underground workshop is alleged to have illegally made and sold human placenta capsules, a Jinqiao Town official said on Monday.

Three bags of capsules were seized at the workshop during a raid, the official said. The health commission also found items it believed to be umbilical cords. Officials are looking into the source of the placenta.

A man surnamed Chen who, according to the Jinqiao official, is in charge of the workshop, was summoned by police earlier in the day and was later released after making a written declaration.

The official said further investigation is needed to decide whether Chen’s practice was unlawful, but all the placenta will be seized.

The Shanghai Morning Post reported on Monday that some new mothers were looking for places that bought placenta and some carers in maternity hospitals had told them about unauthorized workshops, including Chen’s workshop.

The newspaper visited the workshop, which was in a normal apartment, and described it as “sickeningly smelly and has blood all over the place.”

Human placenta was traditionally used in Chinese medicine. It was said placenta could help with new mothers' recovery. But it was removed from the Pharmacopoeia of the People's Republic of China, the official drugs compendium, in 2015.

A doctor who asked not to be named, told Shanghai Daily that new mothers signed an agreement with hospitals on how to deal with the placenta.

“The placenta belongs to the mother, but the agreement also clearly states that the placenta can only be consumed by the mother herself, buying or selling it is prohibited.”

The doctor said that before it goes to the mother, the placenta will be examined to ensure it does not carry any contagious viruses or bacteria.

“Human placenta is valuable in terms of medical study,” said the doctor, “as the umbilical cord blood can be very helpful in clinical diagnostics.”

But the doctor said in terms of eating it, it is just meat.

“It contains fat and protein just like all meat does,” said the doctor. “Making it a capsule will even lose the nutrient content. Not to mention it is hard to ensure the process of making the capsule is clean.

“We usually recommend mothers make dumplings with their own placenta if they insist on having it,” said the doctor.

Li Guoying, head of the gynecology department at Shanghai Ren’ai Hospital, said that while in the past traditional Chinese medicine had considered human placenta medically valuable, contemporary medical science saw it only as medical waste.

“A placenta is nothing more than a hunk of meat,” said Li. “And it may contain bacteria or viruses which high-temperature processing may not be able to eliminate.”

Li said preserving umbilical cord blood is sufficient when the mother or the child faces disease in the future.

“Umbilical cord blood also serves no purpose if you want to eat or drink it,” Li said.