Only 5 percent of health products and alcoholic beverages advertising the ingredient Cynanchum wilfordii, an herb known to relieve menopausal symptoms, actually include the substance, the Ministry of Food and Drug Safety said Tuesday.

Following the controversial case of a local biotech firm’s use of an illegal substance that looks similar to Cynanchum wilfordii in their products, the drug ministry investigated 207 products on the market that contain Cynanchum wilfordii.

Among them, only 10 of them contained the genuine Cynanchum wilfordii. Meanwhile, 40 of them, including the popular alcoholic beverage Baekseju by local brewery Kooksoondang, instead contained Cynanchum auriculatum Royal ― a substance that looks like Cynanchum wilfordii but is banned by the government for human consumption.

The ministry could not confirm the presence of Cynanchum auriculatum Royal in the remaining 157 products, as the DNA of the used substance was destroyed in the manufacturing process.

Among the 157, 58 of them are health products, while 99 of them are general food products.

The ministry said it has ordered the manufacturers of the 40 products that contain Cynanchum auriculatum Royal to remove and discard all of the products on the market. It has also ordered the makers of 58 health products that are suspected to contain Cynanchum auriculatum Royal to discard their products.

As for the 99 general food products that cannot be confirmed to be safe, the ministry said it will allow them to continue selling the products if the manufacturers can prove no Cynanchum auriculatum Royal is contained in their materials.

By Claire Lee (dyc@heraldcorp.com)