Chinese Medicine made from Dead Babies

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South Korean media reported that the capsules, which claimed to restore youth, were in fact made from dead infants or fetuses. 

A Chinese health official said Thursday that investigations have been launched in northeastern China after a South Korean media outlet reported that health capsules made from the flesh of dead babies were being exported from the region to South Korea, from China.

Authorities are investigating the matter at the Yanbian Korean autonomous prefecture in Jilin province but the investigation is yet to yield results, a Yanbian health official, who declined to be named, told the China-based National Business Daily.

The officials said authorities have information about where the "baby flesh" pills were produced but declined to reveal more.

Deng Haihua, a spokesman for China's Ministry of Health, said Tuesday that the ministry is taking the matter seriously and has asked the Jilin health department to probe the case.

A documentary recently aired on SBS, one of the three major broadcasting companies in South Korea, claimed that some Chinese hospitals sold the corpses of infants to pharmaceutical companies, which were then dried and ground into pills.

The SBS documentary team sent samples of the capsules to South Korea's National Institute of Scientific Investigation for DNA testing. Results showed that DNA in the powder of the capsule was a 99.7% match with human DNA.

Deng said the Ministry of Health was determined to clamp down on sales of human organs and corpses. He said that the handling and disposal of the corpses of infants as well as fetuses and placentas were strictly regulated in China and that hospitals and their staff were prohibited from selling or buying corpses or disposing of them as medical waste.

Traditional Chinese medicine has long held that consuming the placenta of a woman who has given birth can restore and rejuvenate the body.