An illegal human placenta trade “thrives” in eastern China. Hundreds of thousands are sold each year, despite a nationwide ban on the practice in 2005, according to Hong Kong Apple Daily newspaper reported Tuesday.
“Underground traders working near the provincial borders of Anhui, Jiangsu and Henan sell fresh placentas they obtain from hospitals, medical waste stations and funeral homes across the country,” according to the newspaper, citing a recent Paper report. , a Chinese state-run news website.
A trader who interviewed the Paper said that by 2020, his group had handled 130,000 placentas obtained from various medical clinics and medical waste facilities in eastern China. The trader group paid 80 yuan ($ 12.30) for each placenta and sold it for profit to Traditional Chinese Medicine (TCM).
Farm sales have also recently been spotted on verified e-commerce platforms in China, such as Alibaba’s Taobao. Traders place placentas for sale on the platform, ranging from 450 yuan ($ 69) to 580 yuan ($ 89). “Sellers are asking for more for placentas that are verified with test reports,” according to the report.
TCM practitioners regard the human placenta as a ‘legal treatment for those with a weak immune system and for the treatment of various diseases, such as tuberculosis and hypohemia, and for reproductive health’, according to the South China Morning Post (SCMP). TCM dealers often dry placentas, pulverize them into a powder, then package the powder in gelatin capsules or dry mixes to use as a soup or with other foods. Some dried placenta bags are simply sold whole.
Most Western medical doctors consider the use of human placenta to be a dangerous practice because the organ – which is temporarily created in the body of a pregnant mother to facilitate the transfer of oxygen and nutrients to her fetus – can be infected with viruses and diseases transmitted by the mother, such as HIV / AIDS, hepatitis B and syphilis.
The human placenta is referred to in TCM as ‘ziheche’, which is itself an umbrella term for many natural health remedies, such as herbal tea, acupuncture and meditation. TCM is an ancient Chinese holistic medicine recently co-opted by the Chinese government to promote a lucrative, pseudo-scientific medical industry that generates hundreds of billions of dollars for the Chinese Communist Party (CCP).
While the Chinese Ministry of Health banned the trade in human placenta in 2005 due to the health risks associated with the practice, ‘[t]the pharmaceutical placenta trade falls into a gray area. “There is no law prohibiting the sale of drugs from Ziheche, and no provisions on the origin of the material,” the SCMP Tuesday noted.