A number of herbal tea shops in Guangzhou were caught by adding medicine compositions

Guangdong residents in China have the habit of drinking “herbal tea”. Herbal tea is not a tea drink, but a drink made from some Chinese herbal medicine. Herbal tea is between beverage and medicine, some people drink herbal tea simply because they like its taste, this kind of herbal tea is not only offline, but also some packaged drinks, such as “Wang Laoji” and “Jiadobao” are herbal tea drinks. However, other herbal tea lovers claim that herbal tea can help the human body reduce inflammation and pain, and regard herbal tea more or less as a kind of medical treatment.

Recently, police in Panyu District, Guangzhou City, investigated and dealt with a number of illegal herbal tea shops during the current “Hurricane 2020” special operation, arrested 15 people involved in the case, and seized a batch of toxic and harmful herbal tea raw materials. The reason is hard to laugh at them: in order to improve the “efficacy” of exclusive herbal tea, attract repeat customers and increase operating profits, these herbal tea operators actually add modern medicine composition to traditional herbal tea.

The police of the case randomly sampled 40 samples from the herbal tea shop in Panyu District and sent them to the relevant departments for testing. The results showed that among the 40 samples submitted for inspection, 15 samples contained “acetaminophen”, “chlorphenamine”, “ibuprofen”, “chlorphenamine maleate” and “metronidazole” in varying degrees, which did not comply with the provisions of the National Food Safety Law. These drugs are painkillers, anti-allergy drugs, and antibiotics, which can indeed make herbal tea play an anti-inflammatory and pain-relieving effect, but healthy people inadvertently take medicine, which is harmful to the body.

Since the beginning of this year, due to the COVID-19 epidemic, some Guangdong residents believe that drinking herbal tea can enhance their immunity to this virus, and begin to drink or drink more herbal tea. Some unscrupulous merchants illegally add unknown ingredients to herbal tea in order to make a profit. The issue of food safety is of great importance. As soon as the Panyu police learned of it, they immediately set up a task force to carry out an investigation.

According to the test results, the Panyu police quickly identified 11 herbal tea shops that illegally added medicine composition, and carried out network collection operations in batches, investigating and dealing with 11 herbal tea shops in Shawan Town, Zhongcun Street, Shiqiao Street, Shatou Street, and Dashi Street, and arrested 15 suspects in accordance with the law.

After test, 11 business operators confessed to illegally adding drugs to herbal tea in the store in order to increase sales, and the 11 herbal tea shops have been shut down in accordance with the law. At present, the case is still under further investigation.

Because there are still many people believe in the role of traditional Chinese medicine, and traditional Chinese medicine has been proved to be ineffective or limited in many aspects, so some products often regarded as traditional Chinese medicine, in order to really have a therapeutic effect, medicine composition are often added to achieve the function. Some products such as proprietary Chinese medicine, traditional Chinese medicine ointment, traditional Chinese medicine toothpaste, and traditional Chinese medicine band-aid, which are usually regarded as products of traditional medicine, have been suspected of adding modern medicine compositions.