A lawmaker alleged yesterday that a food company promoted its illegal products by sponsoring a bikini-clad blood-donation activity in Tainan on Monday.
KMT Legislator Hsu Shao-ping (徐少萍) accused the Chejihu Company, a retailer of food and Chinese medicine, of taking advantage of the Tainan Blood Center's blood donation activity to promote a soft drink called "597."
The drink drew Hsu's criticism because the Chejihu Company claimed in its advertisements the product could alleviate hangovers and heal urethritis, gastrointestinal discomforts, fever, palpitations, vomiting and constipation.
"The labels on the bottles only say the product can freshen the breath, invigorate the spirit and strengthen the body," Hsu said, adding they did not indicate the drink has healing effects, as its advertisements claim.
Hsu said all labels and advertisements promoting healing properties in ordinary food constitute violations of the Food Management Law (
The food company admitted it has been fined for promoting the product several times, and Hsu alleged the company sponsored a blood-donation activity held by the Tainan Blood Center in order to distribute the drinks as gifts to blood donors.
On Monday, the Chejihu Charity Foundation, in association with the Chejihu Company, launched a month-long blood donation effort in conjunction with the center.
It hired eight bikini girls to attract donors.
The girls either stood in front of the blood center to greet passers-by or served the donors with drinks when nurses collected their blood.
Hsu questioned the foundation's bikini girls to entice blood donors and expressed concern that such behavior may tarnish the positive image of blood donations.
The number of blood donors tripled in the blood center on Monday because of the presence of the bikini girls.
But despite the increase in blood donors, Chang Ing-ell (張英二), secretary general of the Chinese Blood Donation Association, disapproved of the practise.
Chang noted that blood centers should remain cautious when accepting sponsorships from the business sector.
"We welcome sponsorships from individuals and companies. But we are also aware that many sponsoring companies want to promote their products during the blood-donation activities," Chang said.
Products distributed at blood-donation events have included milk, chicken essence and surgical masks, Chang said.
Hwang Yu-hsiung (
"In Taipei, a blood donation bus can easily collect 100 to 200 bags of blood in a single day. However, in the three counties, a blood donation bus is hard pushed to obtain 20 to 30 bags of blood a day," Huang said.
"Usually our blood-donation buses harvest less than 20 bags of blood a day," Huang said.
He said the Tainan Blood Center allowed the presence of the bikini girls because it faces a shortfall of blood supplies for the coming summer vacation.
Meanwhile, Fang Ying (
Admitting its advertisements on 579 drinks were exaggerated, Fang said it was probably some of her competitors who moved Hsu to question the foundation's motive behind sponsoring the blood donation.
"My company is not the only one exaggerating advertisements. Which company does not exaggerate its products?" Fang asked.
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