Controversy over the government’s decision to relax restrictions on US beef imports is heating up. The government shirked its responsibility to control the safety of imports and instead transferred that responsibility and risk directly to consumers. At the same time, the entire nation seems to have bought into the idea that local governments and the public themselves should manage the risk through self-discipline, a view that, strangely enough, Premier Wu Den-yih (吳敦義) is encouraging.
Since the late 1990s, major countries have viewed issues involving potential risks to public health and the environment as affairs of national security in addition to military and economic issues. These countries stress the adoption of precautionary measures and place even greater importance on engaging the public in decision-making to ensure the legitimacy of their policies.
While the government claims to have worked very hard at the negotiations on US beef imports, it has fallen into the trap of developing countries that treat economic factors as their overriding concern, and is consequently ignoring safety factors such as national health. This makes it clear that high-ranking officials do not have a vision of risk management in the globalization era.
Counter to the international democratic trend, the government also avoided public consultation during its decision-making process despite the fact that the Green Party and the Homemakers Union and Foundation (主婦聯盟環境保護基金會) several months ago called on the Department of Health (DOH) to hold public hearings on the proposed relaxation of restrictions on US beef imports. This is the first lesson we have learned from the affair.
Amid nationwide criticism of the government’s decision-making process, decision makers have scrambled to make amends by “strengthening communication and explanations” to an angry public and lobbied legislators in an attempt to prevent an amendment to the Food Sanitation Control Law (食品衛生管理法). In the current atmosphere of distrust, these efforts to conduct risk management have proven futile. This is the second lesson we have learned.
It seems the Cabinet has decided to go ahead and allow the expanded imports of US beef. However, mad cow disease and its human variant Creutzfeldt-Jakob (vCJD) disease have long incubation periods, increasing the risk of infection going unnoticed. Not only did the decision brush aside the rights of consumers, it could also affect future generations. Do not forget that President Ma Ying-jeou (馬英九) signed the International Covenant on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights just a few months ago. The government’s move to lift the ban on US beef has violated intergenerational justice. This is the third lesson we have learned.
In 2006, the government of former president Chen Shui-bian (陳水扁) opened up the nation to US beef imports. The DOH commissioned the National Health Research Institute to conduct a health risk assessment, which fallaciously calculated the risk of consuming US beef in the same way as dioxin pollution is calculated. In addition, the DOH distorted a “consensus” reached by a committee of experts, prompting several authoritative experts to resign. This year the government has commissioned the College of Public Health at National Taiwan University to conduct a health assessment on US beef, but the DOH has reportedly forcibly intervened in the assessment. This kind of situation where political concerns override the opinions of experts seems to be present in various environmental assessments throughout Taiwan, and this leads to a deterioration in the quality of decision-making and high levels of public distrust in the government. This is the fourth lesson we have learned.
RSS