The Food and Drug Administration (FDA) yesterday issued a three-day ultimatum to firms that have sold or manufactured food containing six Beei Hae Oil and Fats Co (北海油脂) lard-based products that may have been mixed with inferior oil: Pull the items off their shelves or face fines.
“Companies that have purchased the six kinds of potentially problematic Beei Hae Oil lard products are required to inform local health authorities about the quantity they procured and the food products they have made with it by 6pm on Wednesday [today],” the agency’s interim Director-General Chiang Yu-mei (姜郁美) told a news conference in Taipei.
Chiang said that in line with the Act Governing Food Safety and Sanitation (食品安全衛生管理法), the firms must pull all potentially adulterated products from store shelves by midnight on Friday or face fines ranging from NT$60,000 to NT$50 million (US$1,965 to US$1.6 million).
Photo: CNA
Chiang’s remarks came one day after the Greater Tainan Government’s Department of Health ordered a nationwide recall of the six Beei Hae Oil lard products, whose de facto owner, Lu Ching-hsieh (呂青協), has been accused by Tainan prosecutors of using 582 tonnes of inedible oils and animal feed-grade beef tallow to produce 1,275 tonnes of cooking lard.
Lu and his wife, Lu Huang Li-hua (呂黃麗華), the nominal head of Beei Hae Oil, have been held incommunicado since Oct. 18 and Oct. 30 respectively on charges of fraud and violating the act.
Chiang said Tainan’s health department is still trying to track the downstream buyers of the six questionable products, which could have been sold to food processors nationwide and came in a variety of package sizes ranging up to 180kg.
Meanwhile, Greater Tainan Mayor William Lai (賴清德) of the Democratic Progressive Party (DPP) dismissed accusations by Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) legislators that the city’s health department had denied a request from the Tainan District Prosecutors’ Office to instigate a preventive recall of Beei Hae Oil’s lard products.
“It was the city’s health department that referred Beei Hae Oil’s case to the prosecutors’ office for investigation after it found the Tainan-based company’s business receipts to be suspicious,” Lai told a news conference in the city.
There was no mention of a recall request when the health department’s officials met with prosecutors to discuss the case on Oct. 27 and again on Monday.
“In addition, it is the mandate of the Ministry of Health and Welfare [to initiate a recall], which is why the prosecutors’ office explicitly said [in a press release yesterday] that it did not have the right to issue such a request,” Lai said.
The city government did not receive a list of Beei Hae Oil’s downstream buyers from the prosecutors until Monday, Lai said.
City health officials immediately notified the ministry and launched a nationwide recall of the suspect products as soon as they received the information, he said.
Additional reporting by CNA
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