{"id":43355,"date":"2024-07-24T05:14:47","date_gmt":"2024-07-24T05:14:47","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.nsemgh.com\/?p=43355"},"modified":"2024-07-24T05:14:49","modified_gmt":"2024-07-24T05:14:49","slug":"president-of-kobayashi-pharmaceutical-to-resign-after-report-of-drug-linked-to-80-deaths","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.nsemgh.com\/2024\/07\/24\/president-of-kobayashi-pharmaceutical-to-resign-after-report-of-drug-linked-to-80-deaths\/","title":{"rendered":"President of Kobayashi Pharmaceutical to resign after report of drug linked to 80 deaths"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

The chairman and president of a major Japanese dietary supplement maker is to resign, as the company probes up to 80 deaths potentially linked to dietary supplements meant to lower cholesterol.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Kobayashi Pharmaceutical, a household name in Japan, is at the centre of heath fears linked to its over-the-counter tablets containing red yeast rice, which is fermented with a mould culture.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The company\u2019s board released a damning\u00a0external report\u00a0on Tuesday that said the firm had failed to prioritise consumer safety and acted with an \u201cinsufficient sense of urgency\u201d. The report by a team of external lawyers said the company began to receive reports of kidney problems from doctors in mid-January and early February.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\"Dietary<\/a><\/figure>\n\n\n\n

Red yeast rice or\u00a0\u201cbeni koji\u201dhas been used in food, alcoholic drinks and folk medicine for centuries around east Asia.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Medical studies say it can improve cholesterol levels but also warn of a risk of organ damage depending on the ingredient\u2019s chemical makeup.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Kobayashi Pharmaceutical said president Akihiro Kobayashi and chairman Kazumasa Kobayashi were leaving their posts. Both men belong to the firm\u2019s founding family.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The decision was made \u201cto clarify executive responsibility over a series of actions by our company related to the \u2018beni koji\u2019 issue\u201d, it said in a statement.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The scandal erupted in March when the company recalled three brands of dietary supplements after customers complained of kidney problems.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

It later said it had detected a potentially toxic acid produced by the mould at one of its factories, and the government inspected the firm\u2019s facilities.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Then last month, the\u00a0company said it was probing a total of 80 deaths\u00a0possibly connected to its pills, and investigating whether organs other than kidneys were harmed.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

At the time, the government called Kobayashi Pharmaceutical\u2019s delay in reporting the number of cases under investigation \u201cextremely regrettable\u201d.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The lawyers said in Tuesday\u2019s report: \u201cKobayashi Pharmaceutical had never before received multiple reports of serious cases from doctors in such a short period of time.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cDespite this, the company did not immediately consider disclosure to consumers, acting with an insufficient sense of urgency.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The company should have recalled the products right away and reported the incident, but it decided to do so only after conducting internal probes, the lawyers alleged.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Kobayashi Pharmaceutical\u2019s new president is Satoshi Yamane, previously head of sustainability policy, the company said.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Outgoing president Akihiro Kobayashi, who has expressed his intention to take responsibility for any harm caused, will remain in an executive role to manage compensation-related matters, it added.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

The chairman and president of a major Japanese dietary supplement maker is to resign, as the company probes up to 80 deaths potentially linked to dietary supplements meant to lower cholesterol. Kobayashi Pharmaceutical, a household name in Japan, is at the centre of heath fears linked to its over-the-counter tablets containing red yeast rice, which […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":8,"featured_media":43356,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_post_source_name":"","_post_source_url":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[64,54],"tags":[5274,7489,8051,3513,7234,539,5257,11273,5455,9127,6496,2264,10197,2959,9326,11382,10303,12309,6527,11081,3805,8297,8045,5807,12264,594],"class_list":["post-43355","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-health-fitness","category-obituary","tag-asia","tag-chairman","tag-consumers","tag-culture","tag-death","tag-delay","tag-doctors","tag-drug","tag-family","tag-february","tag-food","tag-government","tag-investigation","tag-japan","tag-japanese","tag-kobayashi-pharmaceuticals","tag-medicine","tag-men","tag-organs","tag-pharmaceutical","tag-president","tag-resign","tag-rice","tag-risk","tag-scandal","tag-who"],"blocksy_meta":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.nsemgh.com\/api-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/43355","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.nsemgh.com\/api-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.nsemgh.com\/api-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.nsemgh.com\/api-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/8"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.nsemgh.com\/api-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=43355"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.nsemgh.com\/api-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/43355\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":43357,"href":"https:\/\/www.nsemgh.com\/api-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/43355\/revisions\/43357"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.nsemgh.com\/api-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/43356"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.nsemgh.com\/api-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=43355"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.nsemgh.com\/api-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=43355"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.nsemgh.com\/api-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=43355"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}