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Police seized 5,357 bottles of baijiu suspected to contain Viagra.

New | Stiff drink: Two Chinese firms probed for spiking alcohol with Viagra

Guangxi distillers may have added the impotence treatment drug to their alcohol

Chinese police have opened an investigation into whether two distillers in China's southwestern Guangxi province added impotence treatment drug Viagra to their liquor in the country's latest food-safety scare.

The Liuzhou Food and Drug Administration said it found that Guikun Alcohol Plant and Deshun Alcohol Plant in the provincial city of Liuzhou were putting sildenafil - more commonly known as Viagra - into three of their products.  is a fiery grain liquor that commands high prices in China.

Law enforcement officers confiscated 5,357 bottles of the suspect products, 1,124 kg of raw alcohol and a batch of white powder labelled sildenafil, in a case that involved more than 700,000 yuan (HK$872,000), according to a statement that the administration posted on its website on Saturday.

The case had been transferred to the police, it said, adding that the products had all been marketed as having health-preserving qualities.

Food safety is a chronic problem in China, and public anxiety over cases of fake or toxic food often spreads quickly.

In June, state media reported that Chinese customs had seized around 3 billion yuan worth of smuggled meat - some more than 40 years old and rotting - in the latest in a grim series of food safety scares across the country.

The reports said the expired frozen meat were mainly old food reserves from the United States, and were distributed to small cities on the mainland before they were sold to food stalls and small restaurants. Chinese customs named Hong Kong as a transit point for the smuggled meat.

In May 2013, police said they had broken up a crime ring that passed off more than 10 million yuan in rat and small mammal meat as mutton.

 

This article appeared in the South China Morning Post print edition as: Two firms investigated over Viagra in liquor
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