'Above this margin there is a proven risk that PCA is carcinogenic. PCA has no place at all in a painkiller that so many people use. .. There's too little control and supervision, including from Europe.'
- Professor Jan Tytgat'..Paracetamol from factories that use the same production method as Anqiu Lu'an should also be tested for PCA.''The research of NRC and Zembla on paracetamol - the most swallowed painkiller in the world - started last year. A source in China had raised the alarm during the crisis with the blood pressure medication. There were more problems with contaminated medicines from China. "Cheap has its price," said the source. "Supervision is poor, the quality too variable."
..
In his laboratory on the ninth floor of a building of the Catholic University of Leuven, Professor Jan Tytgat looks worried. On the table are the analysis results. He also uses the EFSA safety margin. "Above this margin there is a proven risk that PCA is carcinogenic. PCA has no place at all in a painkiller that so many people use".
Tytgat is an authority. He heads the toxicology and pharmacology department at his university and is head of the laboratory for forensic toxicology at the Belgian Ministry of Justice. Tytgat was for many years president of the European department of the
International Society on Toxicology.
He says he is not surprised by the outcome of the analysis. "There's too little control and supervision, including from Europe."
The professors also point out that exposure to genotoxic carcinogens should be as low as reasonably achievable. In Europe, substances that are both genotoxic and carcinogenic should not be added to food. They should also not be used in production if they remain in food products.
According to Professor Tytgat, the fact that paracetamol is contaminated with PCA is unacceptable. He calls on the supervisory authorities to trace the contaminated batches and take them off the market. Paracetamol from factories that use the same production method as Anqiu Lu'an should also be tested for PCA.'
- NRC,
Contaminated drugs: Why peppermint is safer than Chinese paracetamol, July 9, 2020 (
Deepl)
Context'Carcinogenic found in paracetamol .. [produced by] Anqiu Lu'an Pharmaceutical in China..'