Mon, Nov 13, 2006 page2

• Feature: Draft report on US beef slams DOH

  WHEELS WITHIN WHEELS According to a legislative study obtained by the `Taipei Times,' health officials arbitrarily lifted the ban on beef imports early this year

  • By Shih Hsiu-chuan / STAFF REPORTER
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  In light of the controversy over the decision by health officials to allow US beef to re-enter the Taiwanese market in January, a legislative task force was established in May to review matter.

  The committee is soon to conclude its investigation, with the draft report saying that local health officials had caved in to pressure from the US and committed a dereliction of duty in agreeing to the speedy re-opening of beef imports.

  The draft report, however, has come under fire from Democratic Progressive Party (DPP) lawmakers who said that only information unfavorable to health officials was considered by the committee and that the final report was "below the belt."

  

  A butcher at a store in Taipei on Feb. 13 places new cuts of US beef in coolers after a ban on the meat was lifted.

  PHOTO: AP

  The government first banned US beef imports in December 2003 after the discovery in Washington State of a single case of bovine spongiform encephalopathy (BSE), or mad cow disease.

  An advisory committee was established in March 2004 under the Department of Health (DOH) to deal with the matter.

  Despite the third case of mad cow in the US in March this year, Taiwan's market has been opened to US beef on a conditional basis since January. Imports were resumed last April, then suspended two months later when a second case of mad cow was reported in the US.

  According to the legislature's draft report obtained by the Taipei Times, DOH officials arbitrarily lifted the ban without the consent of the Council of Agriculture (COA) and of the DOH's own advisory committee.

  The draft report said that officials with COA and its Bureau of Animal and Plant Health had sent notification to DOH more than 10 times, outlining the department's disapproval of US requests for a resumption of beef imports, but its opinion was totally ignored.

  As for the advisory committee, the draft report said that the decision to re-open the market to US beef products was made in a clandestine fashion without consensus among its members. Official records of proceedings were also written in haste without due attention to detail, the draft report said.

  Chen Hsum-hseng (陳順勝), a professor of neurology at Chang Gung University, told the Taipei Times in a telephone interview that he thought this criticism was justified.

  "I dropped out of the committee because what I said in the meeting was not correctly recorded. I didn't know the conclusion until I received the transcript of proceedings afterwards. I disagreed with the conclusion but had no way to complain about it," he said.

  He said that he withdrew from the group when the BSE risk assessment study conducted by the National Health Research Institute (NHRI) was made public.

  "We only got a chance to discuss the study after DOH officials had used it as a propaganda tool to convince people about the safety of US beef. They said that the function of the advisory committee was only to endorse the DOH's stance of re-opening the market to US beef," he said.

  However, Steve Chen (陳校賢), a visiting professor at Chang Jung Christian University who has worked as a veterinarian in Canada for 30 years, demurred at the allegation of improper procedure in the advisory committee.

  "It's a lie to say that permitting the importation of US beef had nothing to do with politics and trade concerns, but the permission was given mainly based on our scientific knowledge of the disease," Steve Chen said in a telephone interview.

  He referred to the World Organization for Animal Health's (OIE) guidelines which support the safety of trade in beef -- even from BSE-affected countries -- under certain circumstances.

  The guidelines say that boneless beef from cattle under 30 months old can be traded without risk to consumers, as long as exporting countries have taken precautions against the disease and that appropriate safeguards such as Specified Risk Material procedures are in place.

  "Given the conditions the government has set, which comply with OIE guidelines, the dispute over whether to import US beef still exists simply because some people don't believe in science," Steve Chen said.

  The legislative task force committee is expected to complete its official report by the end of this legislative session, but the objectivity of the draft report has already been called into question.

  "It [the draft report] was really biased and lacked a spirit of professionalism. The people who did the actual writing obviously leaned towards the COA's viewpoint," DPP Legislator Winston Dang (陳重信) said.

  Dang said that the draft report was based on a COA report aimed at attacking the DOH over US beef imports and passed over the department's efforts to enforce health regulations.

  "The draft said that the DOH based its decision only on information given by the US Department of Agriculture, but DOH actually had its own risk assessment on the danger of contracting BSE from US beef, which was conducted by NHRI. The draft report left that part out," Dang said.

  Commenting on the dispute between the council and DOH over the issue, Dang said that it wasn't easy for COA officials specializing in animal husbandry to understand food hygiene.

  "Added to this, the COA's ego got in the road," he said.

  Taiwan Solidarity Union Legislator Lai Shin-yuan (賴幸媛), however, spoke in praise for the report which she said had highlighted crucial problems of the policy-making process governing the decision to resume US beef imports.

  "The draft revealed that COA and DOH were polar opposites on the matter, and it's rare that two government agencies have been so seriously divided," Lai said.

  Lai said that she agreed with the draft report's conclusion that pressure by the US government was the main reason why Taiwan resumed imports.

  According to the legislature's draft report, the country's chief representative office in the US sent a telegram back to Taipei last December, in which it said that lifting the ban on US beef imports was regarded by the US as a prerequisite to resume talks on the US-Taiwan Trade and Investment Framework Agreement.

  The legislature's task force committee has sent a delegation to the US to inspect the raising, slaughtering and exporting of beef cattle, and plans to hold a legislative hearing on the issue ahead of delivering its final report before the end of the year.
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