Chinese police are probing two distillers from the southwestern Guangxi province who are accused of adding impotence treatment drug Viagra to alcohol in the country's latest food-safety scare.
Guikun Alcohol Plant and Deshun Alcohol Plant in the city of Luizhou added sildenafil – more commonly known as Viagra – into three of their baijiu products, according to Liuzhou Food and Drug Administration. Baijiu is expensive, fiery grain liquor.
Police confiscated 5,357 bottles of “Viagra liquor,” more than a ton of raw alcohol and a batch of white powder labeled Sildenafil, Xinhua reports. The case is worth 700,000 yuan (almost $113,000).
All the products are reported to have labels praising their health-preserving qualities. However, Viagra is not safe for people with cardiovascular problems; therefore it is banned as a food additive in China.
It is not the first case of adding Viagra into baijiu liquor in China. Last year, a businessman from central China's Hubei Province was detained for the same crime.
Food quality is a key problem for China. According to the South China Morning Post, in June Chinese customs discovered almost $500,000 worth of smuggled meat from US reserves that was more than 40 years old.