The Taipei City Government's health department yesterday warned consumers against using pregnancy tests and condoms that don't have a medical equipment license serial number imprinted on the package as required by the Department of Health (DOH). Chiang Yu-mei (姜郁美), director of the Food and Drug Division of the city's health department, said that since last June firms that manufacture pregnancy tests and condoms have been required to register with the DOH by presenting accuracy tests. The companies are required to complete the withdrawal of old products and replace them with new ones that carry the approved serial numbers on the pack by next Tuesday, Chiang said. However, department officials conducting a random check of several pharmacies and convenience stores found 43 pregnancy test packs that had no serial number on them. Thirty-three of these makers have registered with the DOH, but were still selling packages without serial numbers. The department also found 45 condom products that had no licensed serial numbers on their packaging. Twenty-seven of the manufacturers are registered with the DOH and only need to add the license numbers to their packaging, the department said. Putting the serial number on the packaging of pregnancy tests and condoms is a good way to assure consumers that the products have passed DOH tests and are registered with the department, Chiang said.
The Taipei Department of Health yesterday said it has launched a probe into a restaurant at Far Eastern Sogo Xinyi A13 Department Store after a customer died of suspected food poisoning. A preliminary investigation on Sunday found missing employee health status reports and unsanitary kitchen utensils at Polam Kopitiam (寶林茶室) in the department store’s basement food court, the department said. No direct relationship between the food poisoning death and the restaurant was established, as no food from the day of the incident was available for testing and no other customers had reported health complaints, it said, adding that the investigation is ongoing. Later
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POOR PREPARATION: Cultures can form on food that is out of refrigeration for too long and cooking does not reliably neutralize their toxins, an epidemiologist said Medical professionals yesterday said that suspected food poisoning deaths revolving around a restaurant at Far Eastern Department Store Xinyi A13 Store in Taipei could have been caused by one of several types of bacterium. Ho Mei-shang (何美鄉), an epidemiologist at Academia Sinica’s Institute of Biomedical Sciences, wrote on Facebook that the death of a 39-year-old customer of the restaurant suggests the toxin involved was either “highly potent or present in massive large quantities.” People who ate at the restaurant showed symptoms within hours of consuming the food, suggesting that the poisoning resulted from contamination by a toxin and not infection of the