The Cabinet will establish an inter-ministerial unit to handle the issues of mislabeled and unsafe food products, Premier Jiang Yi-huah (江宜樺) said yesterday, amid a brewing controversy over the safety of cooking oils.
The unit will be similar to the one that deals with fake and banned drugs and will welcome tips from whistle-blowers, Jiang said before attending a plenary session of the legislature.
Violators of the Act Governing Food Sanitation (食品衛生管理法) are subject to fines, the premier said, citing the example of Chang Chi Foodstuff Factory Co (大統長基), which was fined NT$28.6 million (US$974,000) earlier this month, after authorities found that its oil products were adulterated.
Photo: CNA
Food safety issues should not be tackled by the Ministry of Health and Welfare alone, Jiang said, adding that the quality control system needs to be improved.
All food products should be subject to lab tests before being allowed on the market, the premier said. Currently, quality control is left to the producers, with random checks carried out by the government, he said.
On the Chang Chi matter, Jiang told lawmakers during the plenary session that the health ministry has recalled the company’s products, and vendors that fail to comply within the stipulated one-week period will be fined.
The Food and Drug Administration (FDA) yesterday reiterated that the research project it commissioned that was rumored to have found Chang Chi’s oil was adulterated as early as last year was only meant to develop a testing method to determine the kinds of oils in blended oils sold on the market.
“During the project execution, a few samples taken from the market were tested to see how the new testing method worked,” FDA Deputy Director-General Wu Shiow-ing (吳秀英) said. “The effectiveness of the method had not been confirmed.”
“The edible oil testing method we employ now, which is also the main method used around the globe, is the examination of fatty acid composition. However, as the fatty acid compositions of edible vegetable oils could vary according to their source, place of origin, extraction method and refining and processing process, confirmation of regulation violations would be possible only when factory and formula inspections have also been carried out,” Wu said.
As to concerns about how the bulk of raw cottonseed oil, which is toxic if unrefined, imported by Chang Chi and Flavor Full Foods (富味鄉) has been used, FDA official Tseng Su-hsiang (曾素香) said the agency is now testing samples collected from 76 edible oil manufacturing and packaging factories (out of the total 163 to be inspected), including the cottonseed oil refined by the two companies.
“By testing whether their refined cottonseed oil is free of problematic substances, we can determine whether their cottonseed oil-containing oil products are [potentially harmful to human health],” she added.
FDA food division chief Tsai Shu-chen (蔡淑貞) said that refined cottonseed oil is widely used as edible oil across the world, and since little gossypol, the toxic substance in raw cottonseed oil, remains after refinement, the international food standards-setting body, the Codex Alimentarius Commission, has not set a maximum residue level for it.
“Only China, where some people consumed raw cottonseed oil during the 1930s and were found to have compromised fertility, has set a maximum residue limit, at 0.02 percent,” Tsai said.
Meanwhile, the Ministry of Education issued a statement yesterday, saying it had determined by means of a survey that Chang Chi’s products were being used in meals at 123 public schools in 11 counties.
All of the schools have been instructed to stop using the products, the ministry said.
ROLLER-COASTER RIDE: More than five earthquakes ranging from magnitude 4.4 to 5.5 on the Richter scale shook eastern Taiwan in rapid succession yesterday afternoon Back-to-back weather fronts are forecast to hit Taiwan this week, resulting in rain across the nation in the coming days, the Central Weather Administration said yesterday, as it also warned residents in mountainous regions to be wary of landslides and rockfalls. As the first front approached, sporadic rainfall began in central and northern parts of Taiwan yesterday, the agency said, adding that rain is forecast to intensify in those regions today, while brief showers would also affect other parts of the nation. A second weather system is forecast to arrive on Thursday, bringing additional rain to the whole nation until Sunday, it
LANDSLIDES POSSIBLE: The agency advised the public to avoid visiting mountainous regions due to more expected aftershocks and rainfall from a series of weather fronts A series of earthquakes over the past few days were likely aftershocks of the April 3 earthquake in Hualien County, with further aftershocks to be expected for up to a year, the Central Weather Administration (CWA) said yesterday. Based on the nation’s experience after the quake on Sept. 21, 1999, more aftershocks are possible over the next six months to a year, the agency said. A total of 103 earthquakes of magnitude 4 on the local magnitude scale or higher hit Hualien County from 5:08pm on Monday to 10:27am yesterday, with 27 of them exceeding magnitude 5. They included two, of magnitude
CONDITIONAL: The PRC imposes secret requirements that the funding it provides cannot be spent in states with diplomatic relations with Taiwan, Emma Reilly said China has been bribing UN officials to obtain “special benefits” and to block funding from countries that have diplomatic ties with Taiwan, a former UN employee told the British House of Commons on Tuesday. At a House of Commons Foreign Affairs Committee hearing into “international relations within the multilateral system,” former Office of the UN High Commissioner for Human Rights (OHCHR) employee Emma Reilly said in a written statement that “Beijing paid bribes to the two successive Presidents of the [UN] General Assembly” during the two-year negotiation of the Sustainable Development Goals. Another way China exercises influence within the UN Secretariat is
Taiwan’s first drag queen to compete on the internationally acclaimed RuPaul’s Drag Race, Nymphia Wind (妮妃雅), was on Friday crowned the “Next Drag Superstar.” Dressed in a sparkling banana dress, Nymphia Wind swept onto the stage for the final, and stole the show. “Taiwan this is for you,” she said right after show host RuPaul announced her as the winner. “To those who feel like they don’t belong, just remember to live fearlessly and to live their truth,” she said on stage. One of the frontrunners for the past 15 episodes, the 28-year-old breezed through to the final after weeks of showcasing her unique