Concerns over Japanese drugmaker Kobayashi Pharmaceutical’s health supplement containing red fermented rice, called beni kо̄ji, are growing rapidly following the deaths of two people who had taken it, resulting in a government investigation on possible causal links.
It is unclear whether the two fatalities, along with the hospitalization of 106 people who have consumed the supplement, were caused by the ingestion of beni kо̄ji manufactured by the pharmaceutical company.
Kobayashi Pharmaceutical markets the supplement as a means to lower low-density lipoprotein, or so-called bad cholesterol.