Due to kidney diseases and other issues caused by the intake of "Red Yeast" produced by our company It has caused great pain and anxiety for everyone This incident has now escalated into a social issue. We deeply apologize The individuals you see bowing in apology now Are the senior management of Kobayashi Pharmaceutical in Japan The person in the middle is Akihiro Kobayashi, the representative director of Kobayashi Pharmaceutical That is, the president of Kobayashi Pharmaceutical The others are the main responsible persons of Kobayashi Pharmaceutical This company has recently encountered big trouble Because a functional food they produced After consumption, consumers not only gained no benefits but suffered kidney damage instead Kobayashi Pharmaceutical's Red Yeast nutritional supplement As of yesterday, more than a hundred hospitalization reports have been received One user who has been taking it for about three years Developed kidney disease And has now been confirmed dead According to the Ministry of Health, Labour and Welfare Besides Another user Who died from using the Red Yeast nutritional supplement has also been confirmed To date, two deaths have been confirmed So far, there have been about 3,000 reports of related health damages Think about it, functional foods are supposed to be the icing on the cake But instead, they caused significant harm to the body This is something unacceptable So on March 29th, Kobayashi Pharmaceutical held a press conference in Osaka, Japan Held a press conference At 2 PM Kobayashi Pharmaceutical held a press conference in Osaka City. According to Japanese societal norms, when such incidents occur, corporate executives First have to bow in apology to the public, consumers, and the media In fact, during this incident, this has been the second time they've bowed in apology Because on March 22nd When they announced the recall of this functional food, they already began to bow in apology We deeply apologize to customers who may have suffered health damages While deeply apologizing to customers who are currently using the product Please make sure to stop using the related products Please It's just that at that time, the main purpose was to announce the recall, and the media didn't know what was going on But on March 29th, it was different Because since they announced the recall information on March 22nd, Japanese society was in an uproar So the latest data shows that five people Have died after eating their functional food And another 116 people are receiving hospital treatment You see, generally, Japanese society Is considered to have a higher level of food safety assurance Not only are Japanese people relatively reassured about food safety in Japan But people from other countries generally have the impression that Japanese food is safer So, this incident with Kobayashi Pharmaceutical Has become the biggest food safety incident in Japan in recent times After this incident, it also caused panic in Japanese society So on the day of March 29th, at the press conference Many media asked Kobayashi Pharmaceutical some very sharp questions About the unknown components that may cause health damage "The structure is already quite clear To the national research institutions We hope to quickly advance the analysis work while providing the data we have Although we had grasped the situation in January But for the delay in publicizing information, Kobayashi Pharmaceutical stated... Regarding the criticism that earlier disclosure could have prevented the spread of harm We have nothing to say Regarding this aspect We recognize this as a serious issue Regarding the speed of disclosure and its pros and cons We will also take it seriously and verify it in the future So, how did this food safety accident happen And how was it discovered? It's a bit of a long story It started last November when some patients went to the hospital for treatment Then, the doctors discovered that their kidneys were damaged A common feature is that their urine color is darker, and some people have foamy urine. So, during treatment, doctors would ask Ask what you have eaten. These consumers are generally older, with higher cholesterol levels. They all consumed a functional food produced by Kobayashi Pharmaceutical called red yeast rice. A functional food for lowering cholesterol. Although it's a functional food, it's made like a medicine, in red pills. Containing red yeast rice as the main ingredient, the doctors then suspected Saying whether your kidney damage was caused by this red yeast rice. They then reported this information to Kobayashi Pharmaceutical. Upon receiving this information, Kobayashi Pharmaceutical started their own investigation. Because there is a harmful substance called citrinin in red yeast rice Citrinin has nephrotoxicity, which was discovered by a French scientific team 30 years ago. So, Kobayashi Pharmaceutical checked whether their red yeast rice contained citrinin. They said no, as their past processes and promotions repeatedly claimed That their red yeast rice did not contain citrinin. So, they communicated with doctors whether it was caused by an allergy Not by the raw materials in this red yeast rice. But in February, they suddenly found very suspicious information That all these patients with kidney damage Had consumed functional foods from red yeast rice made from the same batch of raw materials. What does it mean? Kobayashi Pharmaceutical produces a lot of red yeast rice every year, 18 tons. This 18 tons is also produced in different batches. Besides producing this functional food from red yeast rice themselves They also supply many other companies in Japan as raw material. They discovered that all these patients with kidney damage had consumed red yeast rice Produced from the same batch of raw materials, which was extremely abnormal. So, they focused their investigation on the raw materials of this batch of red yeast rice. Searching and searching until March 16th this year They found that this batch of red yeast rice indeed contained so-called unknown substances. At this time, the evidence was very conclusive. That is, the kidney damage was caused by consuming this batch of red yeast rice. So, on March 18th, Kobayashi Pharmaceutical hastily convened a board meeting. Four days later, on March 22nd, they held a press conference To announce the recall of all their products. This is the whole process of the incident. It should be said that after this incident was revealed, it caused great outrage in Japanese society. First, the Japanese government said Now it's even reported that the industry had grasped the first case on January 15th But did not disclose it immediately, instead, they buried themselves in an investigation Until the end of March before reporting to the Ministry of Health, Labour and Welfare Secondly, people were poisoned You should also report to the Japanese cabinet immediately But Kobayashi Pharmaceutical did not report So, at that time, the cabinet minister came out and said it was extremely regrettable about Kobayashi Pharmaceutical's incident In fact, "extremely regrettable" in Japanese already implies condemnation Quite a strong condemnation, that's one aspect The second aspect, I think, from my feeling when I saw the news Is that during the entire process of this incident The role played by the media was actually very small Because from discovering such a patient case in November last year to January 15th Japanese doctors reported this information to Kobayashi Pharmaceutical Kobayashi Pharmaceutical in the next two months Had such back-and-forth consultations with doctors But during the whole process, you see, there's no media involved Given such a major food safety accident, the media should have reported first First report the emergence of so many patients with kidney damage Whether there is any connection with Kobayashi Pharmaceutical Even without conclusive evidence, the media should report first But you can find that there was no media reporting during the entire process My own feeling is that in Japanese society Actually, the role played by the media in protecting the public interest of ordinary people Is very limited Because Japan's media ranks around 73rd in the global press freedom index Of course, China is even lower at 173rd But among developed countries, 73rd is a very low ranking That is, the role played by Japanese media in Japanese society Does not match its status as a developed country So, I personally think Actually, Kobayashi Pharmaceutical delayed the information disclosure for two months for such reasons Next, let's introduce what Kobayashi Pharmaceutical is all about. Kobayashi Pharmaceutical was established in the last century, in 1886. Initially, it was a general merchandise business selling daily necessities and some alcohol. In 1916, it was registered as a company named Kobayashi Pharmaceutical. What kind of medicine did it produce? It produced medication for treating athlete's foot. It also produced another product called Daikokuban, and just by hearing this name, you would know. Actually, Daikokuban also includes medication for treating athlete's foot. All are traditional Japanese Kampo medicines. Japanese medicines are actually divided into two categories. One is medicines produced by modern science. The other is their traditional Japanese pharmaceuticals, called Kampo medicine in Japan. Kampo is derived from the Chinese approach. It's along the same lines as traditional Chinese medicine. However, with Japan's post-war development and the popularization of science, Japanese Kampo medicine was significantly impacted. Because everyone believes that modern medicine brings greater benefits. The efficacy of traditional Kampo medicine is unclear. So, its influence in Japanese society has become increasingly limited. Since its establishment, the company has indeed faced many difficulties. In 1956, the company underwent a significant change. It moved to Osaka, Japan. Especially at that time, the Kobayashi family produced a successor named Kobayashi Kazumasa. This person played a very important role in the development history of Kobayashi Pharmaceutical. He aimed to explore new markets and began researching new medicines. First, he developed a medicine called Anmeru. What is Anmeru? It is a pain relief medication. It involves placing the pain relief medication into a plaster that can be applied to the body's joints for pain relief. After this medicine was launched, it became very popular, instantly becoming a hit product. It sold over 3 billion in one year. At the same time, he began to produce some daily necessities. What were these two types of daily necessities? They were deodorants for Japanese toilets, which, upon release, also caused a significant stir in Japanese society and quickly became a hit product. Everyone knows that Japan is a nation that highly values cleanliness, especially in toilets. The cleanliness of toilets, I believe is unmatched by any other country in the world. In general, if there's a smell in Japanese toilets, it's definitely a fragrance, not a bad odor. But think about it, the reason Japanese toilets can be so clean is related to their series of bathroom products. This includes the design of the toilet facilities themselves and also includes a series of other products designed around the toilet. Kobayashi Pharmaceutical's toilet deodorizer is one of them, so with these three products, it quickly became a relatively influential pharmaceutical company in Japan. But the "pharmaceutical company" I mentioned is somewhat discounted, because the level of Japanese pharmaceutical companies globally is quite high. For example, Takeda Pharmaceutical, Daiichi Sankyo, Daiichi Sankyo produced PD-1 and won the Nobel Prize for it. So, you can imagine, the level is very high, they are the first tier. Kobayashi Pharmaceutical, in fact, is not very well-known in Japan and ranks below 20th. It mainly produces OTC medications, that is, non-prescription drugs. And mainly daily cosmetics, so although it's called Kobayashi Pharmaceutical, the relationship with pharmaceuticals is not really significant. But this company has a very big name in China. Why does it have such a big name in China? Because over a decade ago, when Chinese tourists just started their buying spree in Japan, an article circulated online. This article was titled "12 Must-Buy Miracle Drugs in Japan." Among these 12 miracle drugs, 5 were from Kobayashi Pharmaceutical. The first one was Anmeru, the pain relief plaster. You can stick it on your body after returning. And Chinese people like several types of products from Kobayashi Pharmaceutical, one is called liquid band-aid, which is not the kind that wraps around your body. You squeeze it, and once it's applied to your hand, it solidifies. Then it acts as a blood clotter. This is very popular in Japan, and also in China. Other very popular products in China include, one is the warming pads, very popular in winter especially among women. Another one is the children's fever-reducing patch. When a child has a fever, sticking this on their forehead can reduce the temperature. In the big cities of China, any parent with children, you'll see, has likely bought these fever-reducing patches from Kobayashi Pharmaceutical in Japan. So, its impact in the Chinese market is very significant. But in Japanese society, it indeed doesn't rank very high in the pharmaceutical industry. However, this company's annual sales are nearly 200 billion yen, with profits of about 20 billion yen, so it's still developing quite well. From over a decade ago, it started from a simple pharmaceutical company and began introducing functional foods. In 2016, it acquired a red yeast rice production company, thus entering the functional food market. After acquiring this company, it did two things, this red yeast, which is what we Chinese call red yeast rice. In 2021, it launched this product that brought it close to a disaster a functional food that reduces cholesterol. Additionally, these red yeast rice provide raw materials for other food industries in Japan. Red yeast rice is commonly used as a dye in traditional food industries. For example, the southern Chinese-produced fermented tofu, the red fermented tofu. The red color of the red fermented tofu actually comes from red yeast rice. Including some of our wines, the red color is also brought by red yeast rice. Therefore, it supplies raw materials to over 100 Japanese companies. So why does it use red yeast rice to produce functional food that lowers cholesterol? This is a bit of a long story. Red yeast rice is a traditional food common to both China and Japan. But in the 1970s, Japan had a team called the Endo team. This Endo team was remarkable; they discovered in red yeast rice a substance called statins, which can lower cholesterol. Then, over the next few years, gradually, everyone extracted this statin substance from red yeast rice. The most famous one is lovastatin. Lovastatin is now recognized by the FDA as the most effective drug for lowering cholesterol. In the 1980s, it passed the FDA's Phase III clinical trials. It has now become the preferred drug in the treatment of hyperlipidemia. After this drug entered the market, some people started to think, saying since lovastatin and other statins were discovered in red yeast rice, doesn't that mean red yeast rice itself has the effect of lowering cholesterol? I don't have to extract the statins, just let you eat red yeast rice. So, Kobayashi Pharmaceutical followed this line of thought and developed a functional food product from red yeast rice, claiming it could lower cholesterol. Think about it, Japanese society and Chinese society have a common feature, many people admire traditional food and traditional Chinese medicine. Just like Chinese people believe in traditional Chinese medicine. So, they think, look, red yeast rice, something you eat every day, can lower cholesterol, that's great. After this product was introduced to the market, it became very popular, now selling for 600 million yen a year. Among the five deceased patients, there was one person who bought this red yeast rice product after it was launched and ate it three times a day for several dozen bags. After eating it for three years, the latest news shows that he eventually passed away because of it. So, in the process of this matter, I personally think the biggest lesson is The biggest lesson is not to really idolize these traditional functional foods. For example, red yeast rice, although it contains statin substances, it doesn't just contain lovastatin; it contains 12 types of statins. Not every one of these 12 types of statins is beneficial to the human body. When this red yeast rice was submitted to the FDA in the United States, the FDA rejected it Why? Because the FDA believes these 12 statins do not all have the effect of lowering blood lipids, and moreover, the content of the drug itself is unstable. So if you sell red yeast rice in the United States, it's actually not recognized. That's one aspect. Second, red yeast rice not only contains statin substances but also others. I just mentioned, 30 years ago, in the 1990s, French scientists discovered a substance called citrinin in red yeast rice, which has very strong nephrotoxicity. So, you see, the content of red yeast rice is so complex, simply eating red yeast rice is actually not beneficial for your health. In this case, Kobayashi Pharmaceutical eventually discovered an unknown substance, although citrinin was not found, but the end result, the harmful substance is very likely to be a substance similar to citrinin, because it also has very strong nephrotoxicity. Although its process does not contain citrinin, it contains substances similar to citrinin. So you know, the risk of traditional food is uncontrollable here, it's a very complex substance that may contain hundreds or thousands of substances. Among these hundreds or thousands of substances, even if one substance may benefit you, you may not know that there are many other substances that could potentially harm you. When you eat this thing, not only is the efficacy doubtful, but you may also face an unknown, potential, unpredictable risk in the process. Actually, this is what I think is the most important point in the news process of Kobayashi Pharmaceutical. And don't think this only happens in Japan. In China, red yeast rice is also widely used. Not only is red yeast rice widely used in our traditional food, in China, there is a drug called Xuezhikang, which is very well-known, still on the market and on China's medical insurance drug list. Xuezhikang, in fact, works similarly to the cholesterol-lowering drugs from red yeast rice. It also claims that the statin substances in red yeast rice can lower cholesterol, so it processed red yeast rice into a substance called Xuezhikang. Xuezhikang even won a national scientific progress award and then entered China's medical insurance. But in fact, the efficacy of Xuezhikang is very doubtful, but it is sold at a very high price, several times that of normal lovastatin. You see, in China, it's the same as in Japan. Xuezhikang once tried to enter the U.S. market, but the U.S. market is very strict about this. So, it initially wanted to enter the U.S. market under the guise of a dietary supplement, but was later warned by the U.S. FDA, because the U.S. FDA believes that the red yeast rice in Xuezhikang contains statin substances, and statin substances are considered drugs. So, it could not enter the U.S. market as a dietary supplement, and was publicly explained to be removed from the market. Later, in 2008, Xuezhikang was ambitious, Believed they could establish a pathway for a drug through the FDA Thus, they applied for a Phase II clinical trial of the drug in the United States Now, if you think about passing the FDA's clinical trial And then making a big sale in the U.S. market, that would be a huge profit All Chinese pharmaceutical companies, including traditional Chinese medicine companies, want to enter the U.S. market through the FDA But after they conducted this Phase II clinical trial With more than 100 people, they did not proceed to Phase III Why? As you can imagine, the results were certainly not optimistic There was absolutely no need to enter Phase III So this is a ridiculous story of China's XueZhiKang attempting to break through the FDA in the United States From this, we can once again tell everyone here That these so-called XueZhiKang and red yeast rice for lowering cholesterol Actually exploit people's reverence for traditional food and medicine And then graft some modern scientific knowledge onto it To produce such a ridiculous freak Because modern medicine extracts lovastatin from red yeast rice So they repackaged it to lower cholesterol again Unaware that letting them eat it directly is not effective Let me give you an example, artemisinin invented by Tu Youyou Artemisinin is indeed very effective in treating malaria But if you let someone eat the sweet wormwood directly, it's useless Why? Because the concentration of the medicine is too low; it must reach a certain concentration to be effective So don't think that just because a raw material can be used to extract modern medicine Eating it directly will be effective; that's a completely wrong concept An even more important point is its potential, unpredictable risks Actually, are far beyond what you can imagine. Speaking of which, I want to mention one more thing That is, Chinese people generally have an inexplicable worship of the Japanese health product market Many people come to Japan just to buy Japanese health products, especially from Japanese drugstores Those drugstores sell a lot of OTC (over-the-counter) medicines Especially regarding these functional foods, including Japanese OTC drugs I suggest everyone still be cautious and careful For instance, there is a medicine in Japan called Ryukakusan Many Chinese people must buy Ryukakusan after coming to Japan; it's for coughs Actually, what's in Ryukakusan? It's licorice, bitter almond, and a bit of platycodon, nothing special Many of these ingredients are also in Chinese medicine, and their efficacy is dubious And bitter almond itself is toxic, but many Chinese people believe in it In my opinion, Japan's food regulation level is indeed very high But Japanese functional foods, including Japanese health foods And including these so-called traditional Japanese herbal medicines Are actually just so-so, never blindly trust these functional foods Including these Japanese herbal medicines To put it nicely, they're ineffective, just a placebo To put it not so nicely, there are indeed many potential, unpredictable risks So here I also hope that after this news came out in China Everyone will quickly verify the health risks associated with red yeast rice On the other hand, when facing Japanese health foods and such OTC drugs You should also be discerning, not blindly worship and rush to buy these Japanese products And then inexplicably rush to purchase them More importantly, whether it's traditional food or traditional medicine We should also abandon such a worshipful mentality What truly brings us health benefits is modern scientific medicine Apart from that, really, worshipping these traditional foods and medicines Is completely unnecessary Okay, that's all for today, thank you everyone
