■Medicine
Girl dies after nursing blunder
A nine-month-old baby girl who was given the wrong medication at Pingtung's Love First Clinic (崇愛診所), died in Kaohsiung's Chang Gung Memorial Hospital on Wednesday night. The baby fell into a coma after a clinic nurse mistook euglucon, a drug to lower blood sugar level, for periactin, usually used to treat fever-related symptoms. The girl was transferred to the Kaohsiung hospital on Dec. 8. On Wednesday night, her situation deteriorated and she suffered heart and lung failures. She died at 8:30pm. Pingtung's local department of health revoked the license of the clinic on Dec. 16. On Dec. 17, the owner of the clinic was fined NT$150,000 for negligence. According to the Department of Health, the clinic administered the wrong medicine to at least 122 patients and affected the health of 11 babies. The investigation into the medical blunder continues.
■ Crime
Thaksin vows to help police
Thai Prime Minister Thaksin Shinawatra vowed yesterday to track down and punish the influential people believed to be behind a gang smuggling stolen luxury cars from Taiwan to Thailand, Cambodia and Laos. Two shipments of stolen cars, including Mercedes-Benzes, Hondas, Toyotas and Nissans worth more than US$1 million, were seized by customs agents in Bangkok's outskirts on Dec. 14 and Dec. 17, officials said. Thai Customs Department chief Chaovalit Sethametheekul was quoted in local press reports as saying the smuggling gang responsible for bringing "more than 100" stolen cars in from Taiwan included suspects from Cambodia, Taiwan, Myanmar and Thailand. The reports said powerful Thai politicians were believed to be protecting the gang, which sold the stolen vehicles in Cambodia and Laos, where cars' steering wheels are on the left side, like Taiwan.
■ Drama
Gao's `Snow' opens in Taipei
Nobel laureate Gao Xingjian's (高行健) first opera production, Snow in August, premiered at the National Theater in Taipei yesterday. In addition to a full house, the opera -- based on Gao's play, which depicts the legend of a seventh-century zen master -- has attracted art-festival organizers from the US and neighboring Asian countries, according to a spokesman for the Council for Cultural Affairs. The council is a major promoter of Gao's work to bring Snow in August to the stage. Acclaimed actor Wu Hsing-kuo plays the leading role in the production, backed by 50 performers, a symphony orchestra, a percussion band and the chorus of the National Taiwan Junior College of Performing Arts in Taipei.
■ Medicine
Researchers grow liver cells
Researchers at the Biomedical Engineering Center of the Industrial Technology Research Institute (ITRI) have succeeded in developing liver cells from embryonic stem cells that can be used to repair damaged livers and to test new drugs, an ITRI spokesman said yesterday. Embryonic stem cells are undifferentiated cells that have the ability to form any adult cells, such as bone, muscle, liver or blood cells. The spokesman said that the research team is the second in the world to grow liver cells, following work by researchers at the Geron Incorporation of the US. As the only stem cell research center in Taiwan, the Biomedical Engineering Center has developed a cell-colony bank to grow cells for local biomedical labs, he said.
Agencies
A group of Taiwanese-American and Tibetan-American students at Harvard University on Saturday disrupted Chinese Ambassador to the US Xie Feng’s (謝鋒) speech at the school, accusing him of being responsible for numerous human rights violations. Four students — two Taiwanese Americans and two from Tibet — held up banners inside a conference hall where Xie was delivering a speech at the opening ceremony of the Harvard Kennedy School China Conference 2024. In a video clip provided by the Coalition of Students Resisting the CCP (Chinese Communist Party), Taiwanese-American Cosette Wu (吳亭樺) and Tibetan-American Tsering Yangchen are seen holding banners that together read:
UNAWARE: Many people sit for long hours every day and eat unhealthy foods, putting them at greater risk of developing one of the ‘three highs,’ an expert said More than 30 percent of adults aged 40 or older who underwent a government-funded health exam were unaware they had at least one of the “three highs” — high blood pressure, high blood lipids or high blood sugar, the Health Promotion Administration (HPA) said yesterday. Among adults aged 40 or older who said they did not have any of the “three highs” before taking the health exam, more than 30 percent were found to have at least one of them, Adult Preventive Health Examination Service data from 2022 showed. People with long-term medical conditions such as hypertension or diabetes usually do not
POLICE INVESTIGATING: A man said he quit his job as a nurse at Taipei Tzu Chi Hospital as he had been ‘disgusted’ by the behavior of his colleagues A man yesterday morning wrote online that he had witnessed nurses taking photographs and touching anesthetized patients inappropriately in Taipei Tzu Chi Hospital’s operating theaters. The man surnamed Huang (黃) wrote on the Professional Technology Temple bulletin board that during his six-month stint as a nurse at the hospital, he had seen nurses taking pictures of patients, including of their private parts, after they were anesthetized. Some nurses had also touched patients inappropriately and children were among those photographed, he said. Huang said this “disgusted” him “so much” that “he felt the need to reveal these unethical acts in the operating theater
Heat advisories were in effect for nine administrative regions yesterday afternoon as warm southwesterly winds pushed temperatures above 38°C in parts of southern Taiwan, the Central Weather Administration (CWA) said. As of 3:30pm yesterday, Tainan’s Yujing District (玉井) had recorded the day’s highest temperature of 39.7°C, though the measurement will not be included in Taiwan’s official heat records since Yujing is an automatic rather than manually operated weather station, the CWA said. Highs recorded in other areas were 38.7°C in Kaohsiung’s Neimen District (內門), 38.2°C in Chiayi City and 38.1°C in Pingtung’s Sandimen Township (三地門), CWA data showed. The spell of scorching