The Beijing Health and Family Planning Commission launched on Monday an investigation into maternity wards and obstetric hospitals around the city following media reports that they are supplying human placentas for sale.
The Beijing Health and Family Planning Commission launched on Monday an investigation into maternity wards and obstetric hospitals around the city following media reports that they are supplying human placentas for sale.
Pieces of human placenta and umbilical cord are prepared (File photo) Photo:Dailymail
The practice of eating one’s placenta after birth, dates back over 2,000 years in China and is believed to have anti-ageing benefits, among other medical advantages for women. This practice is popular around the world, and endorsed by celebrities including Kim Kardashian and January Jones.
Reporters followed smugglers from Beijing Obstetrics Gynecology Hospital on May 14 to a ‘factory’ where the placenta was prepared and turned into a jar of pills.
According to The Beijing News, a female ‘dealer’, surnamed Li, told reporters that she was able to get fresh human placentas from the maternity ward for 500 yuan.
A thriving black market for human placentas continues in Beijing, a newspaper has found. Photo: Handout
An optional 300 yuan can be added for processing and packaging the human placenta.
Ms Li said she had contacts in the maternity ward and was able to ask new mothers if she could take their placentas.
Li told reporters: ‘You have to tell the hospital that you are taking the patient’s placentas for self-use only, you can’t tell them that you’re going to sell it on.’
The placentas, sourced illegally from hospitals, are processed and packaged in capsules. Photo: Handout
The reporter followed Li to a small apartment the next day. The processing of placentas includes washing, boiling, cutting it up, and baking it in an oven. It is then crushed into powder and then placed into individual capsules.
It was also noted that the women washing the human placenta were not wearing gloves while none of the utensils used had been sterilised.
Li told the reporter that each placenta pill can sell for 10 yuan each, and a bottle of 112 pills costs 1120 yuan.
A container of capsules with ground human placenta, which can be sold at 10 yuan each in China Photo:Dailymail
Traffickers have their own designated hospitals for supply, Li noted, and can turn to other connections to other hospitals if need be.
The hospital mentioned in the news report was swift to respond, stating on Sunday that preliminary investigation showed no involvement of its staff in the trade of human placentas. The management also noted that they are cooperating with the police to address the issue.
According to a 2005 regulation released by the national health authorities, human placentas could only be given to the puerperae. Should they choose to forsake or donate it, the hospital has the responsibility of keeping the organ, and ensuring that individuals or entities are not trading it.
In Chinese medicine, human placentas claim to be highly nutritious and restore the body Photo:Dailymail
Chinese Pharmacopoeia excluded human placenta, called Ziheche by practitioners of traditional Chinese medicine, in its latest version published in December 2015. Yet, medicine with Ziheche as an ingredient from a registered pharmacy is legal, Feng Ji, a doctor with No. 2 Hospital attached to Nanchang University, told Beijing News.
Feng has stressed that there are many health concerns surrounding ingesting a placenta of unknown source, as it might carry viruses of diseases including hepatitis B, HIV and syphilis.
