An Iowa manufacturer is recalling herbal supplement kratom products out of fear that they are contaminated with salmonella.
The recall, issued by Zakah Life, comes at a bad time for the kratom industry, which is fighting with the Food and Drug Administration over whether the supplement, taken primarily for pain and depression relief, has led to deaths.
[More: Kratom advocates fight FDA crackdown]
The recall notice applied to four kratom products made by Zakah after lab testing found salmonella in some packages.
“The recalled Kratom products were distributed nationwide in retail stores and through mail orders,” the notice said.
No deaths or illnesses have been reported linked to the kratom products.
The notice does not say there is any link between this latest recall and another salmonella outbreak that was possibly linked to kratom products.
The federal government ended an investigation in May into a salmonella outbreak that sickened 199 people across 41 states.
Officials couldn’t find a single source of the infection, but it found that half of the 66 kratom products it tested were positive for salmonella, which can cause a type of food poisoning.
Because of the positive tests, officials believe that multiple retailers were distributing contaminated kratom.
Thursday’s recall follows closely after the kratom industry blasted the FDA for linking the herbal supplement to deaths. The agency previously has said that kratom is unsafe and attributed 44 deaths to use of the supplement.
The American Kratom Association released a white paper that said the FDA used “junk science” to link kratom to 44 deaths over nine years. The industry looked at the circumstances surrounding the deaths and said that while people may have taken kratom, other factors like drug abuse or taking contaminated kratom were the major factors that killed them.
FDA Commissioner Scott Gottlieb said that the deaths are just one measure of the supplement’s risk. “They don’t account for the many people who may become initiated on, and addicted to, opioids because of the easy access to kratom,” he told the Washington Examiner.
