Pill dosage '245 times over limit'

A herbalist accused of poisoning a patient with home-made pills suggested doses containing up to 245 times the recommended daily lead intake, a court heard yesterday.

Chinese medicine practitioner Wong Kim-ping denies two counts of possessing for sale a drug which was unfit for human consumption.

Fung Yuk-yee had previously told Tuen Mun Court she suffered serious bone pain about two months after taking medicine prepared by Wong in August last year. Ms Fung said she paid $200 for about 90 pills. Subsequent blood tests confirmed lead poisoning. She also said Wong had assured her more than 100 patients had taken the pills.

Yesterday, Department of Health consultant Dr Li Chun-kuen told the court each pill contained more than 30 times the recommended daily allowance of lead stated by the World Health Organisation. Wong had recommended that patients take six to eight pills a day. Dr Li said patients with lead poisoning could die in acute cases.

But Wong maintained the Bao Ning Dan pills he concocted could cure Aids and said he was reluctant to disclose the ingredients to the Department of Health because he planned to use the pill to win a Nobel Prize.

He also accused the Department of Health of teaming up with other practitioners to boycott Bao Ning Dan. 'It is a white terror. The Bao Ning Dan incident is the outcome of the bureaucracy of the Government,' he told the court.