A study released by the Environmental Quality Protection Foundation yesterday suggested that Squalene 99, a brand of shark liver oil imported from Canada, had been found to contain excess levels of dioxin, a toxic chemical.
Fish liver oil has become a popular nutritional supplement for children as well as adults in recent years, as it contains several different types of poly-unsaturated fatty acids -- a substance that can help reduce cholesterol and prevent cardiovascular disease.
Starting in June, the foundation together with the National Tsing Hua University (NTHU) began tests on nine different brands of fish liver oil and evaluating the quantity of dioxin contained in them.
While the other eight sampled brands contained dioxin levels that fell within a range from 0.109 picograms (pg) to 1.08pg, the Squalene 99 shark liver oil was found to have 2.54pg of dioxin, slightly higher than the acceptable value set by the Department of Health (2pg).
The foundation's chairman, Liou Ming-lone (
Liou said the study's results had been sent to the department and that it would carry out follow-up studies.
Hsiao Tung-ming (
After conducting further tests the department would then decide if the product should be banned, he said.
An essay competition jointly organized by a local writing society and a publisher affiliated with the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) might have contravened the Act Governing Relations Between the People of the Taiwan Area and the Mainland Area (臺灣地區與大陸地區人民關係條例), the Mainland Affairs Council (MAC) said on Thursday. “In this case, the partner organization is clearly an agency under the CCP’s Fujian Provincial Committee,” MAC Deputy Minister and spokesperson Liang Wen-chieh (梁文傑) said at a news briefing in Taipei. “It also involves bringing Taiwanese students to China with all-expenses-paid arrangements to attend award ceremonies and camps,” Liang said. Those two “characteristics” are typically sufficient
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The brilliant blue waters, thick foliage and bucolic atmosphere on this seemingly idyllic archipelago deep in the Pacific Ocean belie the key role it now plays in a titanic geopolitical struggle. Palau is again on the front line as China, and the US and its allies prepare their forces in an intensifying contest for control over the Asia-Pacific region. The democratic nation of just 17,000 people hosts US-controlled airstrips and soon-to-be-completed radar installations that the US military describes as “critical” to monitoring vast swathes of water and airspace. It is also a key piece of the second island chain, a string of
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