Top executives at Japan’s Kobayashi Pharmaceutical resigned on Tuesday following revelations that a health supplement the company sells may be linked to 80 deaths.
A damning external report funded by the company found that leadership had acted with an “insufficient sense of urgency” over consumer safety risks.
The tablets in question are made with red yeast rice or “beni koji,” which is fermented with mold cultures.
While a a common ingredient in east Asian food and drink for centuries, it can promote organ damage depending on its chemical makeup.
At the time the government called Kobayashi’s delay in reporting the number of cases under investigation “extremely regrettable.”
The company should have recalled the products immediately and reported the incident, but it only decided to do so after an internal investigation process, the lawyers conducting the audit wrote.
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