German babyfood maker Humana has said its soy-based babyfood formula that is at the centre of an investigation into the deaths of two babies in Israel was deficient in a key vitamin needed for infant health.

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Humana said its kosher Remedia Super Soya 1 product did not contain the amount of vitamin B-1 that was advertised by the product, reported Reuters.

Israeli police are investigating the product after a vitamin B-1 deficiency led to serious health problems in at least nine babies, two of which have died.

Police raided the Tel Aviv offices of Remedia, which has around one-third of Israel’s non-dairy babyfood market, on Monday.

Humana said tests had shown that the babyfood product contained between 29 and 37 micrograms of vitamin B-1 per 100 grams, less than one tenth of the amount declared on the label.

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“These values are significantly lower than the product’s declared value of 385 micrograms per 100 grams of prepared food,” Humana was quoted by Reuters as saying. “They are also below the European Union guideline value of 120 micrograms per 100 grams of food.”

The company said the error was due to flawed analysis of the recipes of two previous products, Soya 1 and Soya 2, used as a basis for calculating the amount of vitamin B-1 required in the Remedia Super Soya 1 product.

“These inaccurate calculations led to the conclusion that the natural B-1 content matched the levels required and that an additional B-1 supplement was not necessary as this would otherwise have resulted in an overdose of vitamin B-1,” the company said.