This handout photo released by Korea Customs Service on May 8, 2012 shows capsules filled with powdered human flesh in Daejeon, officials reported. South Korea has intensified a crackdown on the smuggling of capsules from China containing the powdered flesh of dead babies, seen by some as a cure for disease, a customs official said. AFP PHOTO / HO / Korea Customs Service ---- EDITORS NOTE ---- RESTRICTED TO EDITORIAL USE MANDATORY CREDIT "AFP PHOTO / Korea Customs Service" NO MARKETING NO ADVERTISING CAMPAIGNS - DISTRIBUTED AS A SERVICE TO CLIENTS Pursued by an "invigorate-seeking culture" ... infant capsules. Photo: AFP

SEOUL: South Korean customs said it had confiscated more than 17,000 health capsules smuggled from China that contain human flesh, most likely extracted from aborted foetuses or stillborn babies.
The Chinese Ministry of Health said it had been investigating allegations that capsules were being manufactured from human remains but had found no evidence.

The South Korean customs agency said pills had been smuggled into the country through parcels and luggage carried from China. The pills were composed of ''ground stillborn foetus or babies that had been cut into small pieces and dried in gas ranges for two days, then made into powders and encapsulated'', the report said.

''Flesh pills have been continuously smuggled into [South Korea], camouflaged as health tonics,'' the statement said. 

The pills came mostly from cities in north-eastern China: Yanji, Jilin, Qingdao and Tianjin.

The South Korean government has been investigating capsules made of human flesh since last year when a monthly magazine released a report about the use of dead infants in traditional medicines. 

The report said the infants and foetuses were purchased illegally from hospitals.

Forensic tests on pills marketed as ''infant capsule'' and ''foetus powder'' found a 99.7 per cent match with human tissue, South Korean reports said.

Among some traditional healers in South Korea and China, unborn infants, and particularly placenta, are believed to have medicinal properties.

''Human flesh pills are similar to a bizarre invigorate-seeking culture where people search for items such as seal's genitals and bear gall bladder in hopes for boosting one's stamina,'' Dr Ha Il-hyun at Seoul's Konkuk University Hospital told the newspaper Chosun Ilbo. ''If there's anyone who claims he benefited from the pill, it would only be a placebo effect.''

China's Xinhua news agency on Tuesday quoted a Health Ministry spokesman, Deng Haihua, saying that ''China has strict rules on the disposal of the remains of dead infants, aborted foetuses and placentas, which are categorised as human remains and banned from being disposed of as medical waste''.

Los Angeles Times