Czechs ban American and Chinese supplements

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Czechs ban American and Chinese supplementsBy Shane Starling, 18-Jan-2010The Czech Agriculture and Food Inspection Authority (CAFIA) has pulled two food supplement products from store shelves over contamination concerns.
A product originating in the US called Animal Cuts was banned for containing a pharmaceutical steroid hormone, while a Chinese supplement called Chlorella Extra was withdrawn for exceeding permitted lead levels.
Animal Cuts is marketed on websites as a“fat burner”and contains blends of herbs such as green tea extract, olive leaf extract, buchu leaf, dandelion root, hoodia gordonii, ginger root, quercetin and magnolia bark extract.
CAFIA testing revealed the presence of the steroid hormone, progesterone, which has been linked to increased core temperature and therefore thermogenic effects. It is banned in food supplements in the Czech republic.
“According to the assessment of the Ministry of Health, a food supplement containing this hormone is regarded as dangerous,”CAFIA said, noting 100,000 pills had been imported into the Czech republic where they were mainly being sold on websites.
About 200kg of the Chinese product – Chlorella Extra – a herb associated with energy-boosting, were imported into the Czech republic by a Prague-based distributor with exceeded lead limits. About half of that volume was sold in neighbouring Slovakia.

CAFIA warned consumers not to consume the products if they had already purchased them and said that it had notified the European Union about the issues through the Rapid Alert System for Food and Feed (RASFF).
In 2009 the Czechs also banned a supplement called Sagirra for containing the banned substance, noracetildenafil, which is similar to sildenafil, the substance caommonly used to treat male erectile dysfunction.
“Unlike sildenafil, [noracetildenafil] has not been sufficiently examined and has not been used in medical production yet,”CAFIA said when issuing its ban to the supplement sold mostly on the internet and which secondary distribution in Slovakia had also been achieved.
CAFIA added that it had also banned“curious Chinese chewing gums”that promised,“not only potency enhancement but also breast enlargement or stimulation of kidney function. The public was informed about all these cases.”