On December 15, 2021, Loretta McClintock, 61, wife of US Rep Tom McClintock, R-CA, was found unresponsive by her husband and was later pronounced dead in the hospital. She had reportedly been on a diet and was judged to have died from dehydration brought on by severe intestinal inflammation. A ‘partially intact’ white mulberry leaf was reportedly found in her stomach, which resulted in a rush to judgement in which it was reported in the popular press that she died as a result of consuming the botanical.
As was reported by NutraIngredients-USA on Friday, adverse events expert Rick Kingston, PharmD, head of scientific and regulatory affairs for SafetyCall International, said that white mulberry leaf was an unlikely culprit, judging from the dearth of adverse events reports associated with the botanical.
At the time, Kingston, who is also a professor in the School of Pharmacy at the University of Minnesota, said that there were only two adverse events reports linked to white mulberry leaf in the CAERS database. That is the US Food and Drug Administration’s repository for all supplement and food related adverse events reports.
Expert: CAERS cases can’t be used to point finger at white mulberry
Since then, Kingston said he had time to do a deeper dive into those reports. That examination further bolstered the idea that it’s extremely unlikely that white mulberry leaf by itself had anything to do with Ms McClintock’s death.
In both of the CAERS entries, multiple natural products were detailed on the adverse events reports. Both incidents involved older women who were using multiple products at the same time.