Ministry warns against use of Elraz ‘natural kits'

Health Ministry warned the public against using researcher Hanan Elraz’s “natural kits,” which claim to help cancer patients.

By JUDY SIEGEL-ITZKOVICH
Yaakov Litzman at the President's residence 370 (photo credit: Marc Israel Sellem/The Jerusalem Post)
Yaakov Litzman at the President's residence 370
(photo credit: 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.