On Mar. 4, 2016, China Food and Drug Administration (CFDA) announced the termination of “Pilot Program for Health Food Containing Cordyceps ” released in 2012, requiring all the health foods containing cordyceps to be registered for approval prior to the sale in Chinese market in accordance with the “Administrative Measures for Health Food Registration and Filing”. This new regulation came into effect on the day of announcement.
At present, only 19 kinds of health foods containing cordyceps have been approved by CFDA for sale in the Chinese market; however, there are thousands of products marketed as health foods containing cordyceps sold through e-commerce channels without any health food approval number.
Cordyceps is classified as a Chinese medicine rather than as a food used as both food and Chinese medicine. The long-term consumption of this product may result in the excessive intake of arsenic and high risk of arsenic poisoning, as the limit on arsenic in health food is specified as 1.0mg/kg defined in “GB 16740-2014 National Food Safety Standard Health Food”, while arsenic content detected from the sampling inspection of health food containing cordyceps conducted by CFDA is as high as 4.4-9.9mg/kg.
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