The Democratic Progressive Party (DPP) caucus is expected to propose amendments today to two food safety laws that would require that the place of origin of ingredients in packaged and canned foods be stated on the labels.
Amid the scare sparked by melamine-tainted products from China, DPP legislators plan to introduce the draft amendments to the Act Governing Food Sanitation (食品衛生管理法) and the Commodity Labeling Law (商品標示法), DPP caucus whip Ker Chien-ming (柯建銘) said.
The sanitation act only requires that food packages specify ingredients and their quantities, while the commodity law requires that the label state the place of origin of the final product.
“You only know where the product was assembled, processed or made. But you have no idea as to where the ingredients came from,” Ker said. “We need to make sure that consumers have more information on the food they buy.”
The amendments will be introduced tomorrow in the hope that the Procedure Committee will place them on the legislature’s agenda the following day, Ker said.
Ker said that as the amendments concerned public health, the Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) caucus would not block them.
Meanwhile, Huang Kun-chang (黃焜璋), a senior specialist at the Department of Health, confirmed that three children had been diagnosed with kidney stones, the first possible local victims of Chinese baby formula contaminated with the toxic chemical melamine.
Among the 1,954 people who received free health examinations at special outpatient clinics in more than 20 hospitals run by the department on Saturday, three children were found to have kidney stones, Huang said in a telephone interview.
The three children, between the age of two and five, drank Chinese-made baby formula contaminated with melamine for more than a year, he said, adding it was highly likely the illnesses were caused by the tainted formula.
He said that the mother of one of the children — a two-year-old girl — was the Chinese spouse of a Taiwanese man and that she had fed the child with milk during a trip to China. The mothers of the other two sick children also lived in China, he said.
The food scare in Taiwan intensified early this month after it was found that 25 tonnes of contaminated milk powder had been imported from China.
ADDITIONAL REPORTING BY JIMMY CHUANG
Also See: Delegation meets Beijing counterparts
RESILIENCE: Deepening bilateral cooperation would extend the peace sustained over the 45 years since the Taiwan Relations Act, Greene said Taiwan-US relations are built on deep economic ties and shared values, American Institute in Taiwan (AIT) Director Raymond Greene said yesterday, adding that strengthening supply chain security in critical industries, enhancing societal resilience through cooperation and deepening partnerships are key to ensuring peace and stability for Taiwan in the years ahead. Greene made the remarks at the National Security Youth Forum, organized by National Taiwan University’s National Security and Strategy Studies Institution in Taipei. In his address in Mandarin Chinese, Greene said the Taiwan-US relationship is built on deep economic ties and shared interests, and grows stronger through the enduring friendship between
GAINING STEAM: The scheme initially failed to gather much attention, with only 188 cards issued in its first year, but gained popularity amid the COVID-19 pandemic Applications for the Employment Gold Card have increased in the past few years, with the card having been issued to a total of 13,191 people from 101 countries since its introduction in 2018, the National Development Council (NDC) said yesterday. Those who have received the card have included celebrities, such as former NBA star Dwight Howard and Australian-South Korean cheerleader Dahye Lee, the NDC said. The four-in-one Employment Gold Card combines a work permit, resident visa, Alien Resident Certificate (ARC) and re-entry permit. It was first introduced in February 2018 through the Act Governing Recruitment and Employment of Foreign Professionals (外國專業人才延攬及雇用法),
The Ministry of Transportation and Communications yesterday said that it would redesign the written portion of the driver’s license exam to make it more rigorous. “We hope that the exam can assess drivers’ understanding of traffic rules, particularly those who take the driver’s license test for the first time. In the past, drivers only needed to cram a book of test questions to pass the written exam,” Minister of Transportation and Communications Chen Shih-kai (陳世凱) told a news conference at the Taoyuan Motor Vehicle Office. “In the future, they would not be able to pass the test unless they study traffic regulations
‘COMING MENACINGLY’: The CDC advised wearing a mask when visiting hospitals or long-term care centers, on public transportation and in crowded indoor venues Hospital visits for COVID-19 last week increased by 113 percent to 41,402, the Centers for Disease Control (CDC) said yesterday, as it encouraged people to wear a mask in three public settings to prevent infection. CDC Epidemic Intelligence Center Deputy Director Lee Chia-lin (李佳琳) said weekly hospital visits for COVID-19 have been increasing for seven consecutive weeks, and 102 severe COVID-19 cases and 19 deaths were confirmed last week, both the highest weekly numbers this year. CDC physician Lee Tsung-han (李宗翰) said the youngest person hospitalized due to the disease this year was reported last week, a one-month-old baby, who does not