Ministry warns against use of Elraz ‘natural kits'
02/03/2013 23:53
Health Ministry warned the public against using researcher Hanan Elraz’s “natural kits,” which claim to help cancer patients.
Yaakov Litzman at the President's residence, January 31, 2013. Photo: Marc Israel Sellem/The Jerusalem Post
The Health Ministry warned the public on Thursday against using researcher Hanan
Elraz’s “natural kits,” which claim to help cancer patients.
The warning
came because the ministry has been unable to identify the contents and the
conditions under which the kits, which contain “Elraz Cream” and “Elraz Drops,”
were manufactured.
On January 8, the ministry said the substances in the
products could be harmful to public health, ordered a halt in the kits’
production, and issued a closure order against Elraz’s Refua Veteva pharmacy on
Petah Tikva’s 86 Avshalom Street.
In reaction, Elraz issued what he
claimed was authorization from a microbiology laboratory that the cream “did not
contain dangerous substances.”
But the ministry said such a test looked
only for the presence of microorganisms (bacteria, fungi, yeasts and the like),
not chemicals.
Tests conducted at the ministry’s labs at Tel Hashomer
found “unidentifiable” chemical substances. The ministry also maintained that
Elraz’s document did not refer to the same cream he manufactured at his Petah
Tikva pharmacy.
The ministry said cancer patients had received additional
kits that it had not examined or approved, so it was impossible to assess their
effects.
The ministry also said it suspected that labels on the cream and
drops were counterfeit.
One of the companies “falsely listed” on the
labels filed a police complaint.