Pigs are seen at pig farmer Chang Xianyun's pigsty in Neixiang County, central China's Henan Province, Nov. 27, 2019. (Xinhua/Lu Yun)

An employee in a local statistics bureau in Rushan, East China's Shandong Province is under investigation by police for reportedly poisoning colleagues with an "pig hormone," which drew a lot of attention on the Chinese internet on Monday.

The man, surnamed Yu, was found to have put medical injections into drinking water in his office in July 2019 before the police investigation began, according to a statement published by Rushan's publicity department on Monday on its Sina Weibo account.

The statement said that some online information about the case that has been spreading recently has been exaggerated and misleading.

According to some online information about the case, the suspect bought a hormone that could stimulate pigs to enter heat period  and injected it into the drinking water bottles in the bureau. All the offices in the bureau drank the poisoned water.

The online post said that many people in the bureau, from security guards to senior people, gained weight. One person's neck grew very fat and some female employees' menstrual cycles were disrupted.

"As far as we know, it was indeed a hormone, but we are not sure if it is used for pigs," an employee related to the Rushan police was quoted as saying by Jiemian News.

A person involved told the Jiemian News that he did not feel any abnormal symptoms. After the case was unveiled, the employees went to hospital for a health check. "I was fine. Maybe because I was young," the person said.