SEOUL, South Korea (AP) ? South Korea has seized thousands of smuggled drug capsules filled with powdered flesh from dead babies, which some people believe can cure disease, officials said Monday.
The capsules were made in northeastern China from babies whose bodies were chopped into small pieces and dried on stoves before being turned into powder, the Korea Customs Service said.
Customs officials refused to say where the dead babies came from or who made the capsules, citing possible diplomatic friction with Beijing. Chinese officials ordered an investigation into the production of drugs made from dead fetuses or newborns last year.
The customs office has discovered 35 smuggling attempts since August of about 17,450 capsules disguised as stamina boosters, and some people believe them to be a panacea for disease, the customs service said in a statement. The capsules of human flesh, however, contained bacteria and other harmful ingredients.
The smugglers told customs officials they believed the capsules were ordinary stamina boosters and did not know the ingredients or manufacturing process.
Ethnic Koreans from northeastern China who now live in South Korea were intending to use the capsules themselves or share them with other Korean-Chinese, a customs official said. They were carried in luggage or sent by international mail.
The capsules were all confiscated but no one has been punished because the amount was deemed small and they weren't intended for sale, said the customs official, who requested anonymity, citing department rules.
China's State Food and Drug Administration and its Health Ministry did not immediately respond to questions faxed to them Monday. Chinese media identify northeastern China as the source of such products, especially Jilin province which abuts North Korea.
The Jilin food and drug safety agency is responsible for investigating the trade of such remains there. Calls to the agency and to the information office of Jilin's Communist Party were not answered Monday.
The South Korean customs agency began investigating after receiving a tip a year ago. No sicknesses have been reported from ingesting the capsules.
___
Re: omg omg wtf omg. This is horrific. Capusles of infant flesh in S Korea
Wait a minutes. Eating human flesh is OK, but the problem is the bacteria and other harmful ingredients??
And people believe that eating dead babies is a cure? I'm sorry, I'll lose my Tolerant Liberal card for this, but any culture that believes that is f***ed up.
Are you united with the CCOKCs?
Maybe it was "just" aborted babies. They have DNA but dont really count as people.
Not the article to read while eating lunch.
This is beyond disturbing.
I'm so horrified that I can't draft an appropriate response for this.
FTW!
With some of the other things that Chinese consume/do in their traditional medicine, I doubt it.
This is why, when people tout some alternative medicine as preferable to western medicine with the line "The Chinese have been doing it for 3,000 years" I answer with "That still doesn't mean it's effective."
Yeah, these are the people who eat dried rhinoceros penis for fertility, so...
Well, it might be effective. That doesn't change the fact that it's horrific, of course.
It is a huge jump from animal anything to human. Let's keep that line clear in our minds. You want to eat a semi dried slim jim elephant shlong? Be my guest. But humans are another story, and cannibalism is rare and usually very isolated. An industry of baby drying would make people talk, yes, even in heathen China, so we must keep our wits.
Doesn't mean I want to eat those, either.
I wouldn't even want to eat fingernail cells or hair, which are also dead cells.