Ascertaining the authenticity of medication will soon be as easy as popping a packet into a box, Department of Health (DOH) officials said yesterday.
"You won't even have to remove the pill from the blister pack," said Dai Hsueh-yung (戴雪詠), section chief at the DOH's Bureau of Pharmaceutical Affairs (BPA).
The technology that will make this possible is called near infrared spectroscopy, and three machines worth US$10,000 each will be imported as early as this year, she said, adding that there would be one machine in northern Taiwan, one in central Taiwan and the third in the south.
Although fake pills can contain many of the active ingredients found in legitimate medication and yield nearly identical absorption spectrums, officials told the press at the bureau's year-end news conference yesterday that under computer analysis, the differences are unmistakable.
"It's like comparing braised ribs from the Ambassador Hotel and braised ribs from a night market," bureau director general Liao Chi-chou (
Officials said that the near infrared technology represented a big improvement over current methods of detection, which involve dissolving a drug in a solvent before putting the sample through a mass spectrometer.
"Along with the establishment of a comprehensive sample library of drugs, this machine is going to speed up the process of detecting fake drugs," Dai said.
However, the machines will not be owned and operated by the bureau. Instead, a non-government organization (NGO), to be named the Taiwan Medical Product Anti-counterfeit Task Force (TMPACT), would be formed later this year, officials said.
"Although I will be a member of TMPACT in my personal capacity, the machines will in no way be linked to the health department," Liao said. "We are working toward the same goals, but the TMPACT will not report to the DOH."
Though the task force could receive some government funding, its NGO status is essential to ensure that it gets the access it needs to detect fake drugs, Liao said.
"Put yourself in the shoes of a medical care provider or pharmaceutical company. You suspect that your latest shipment could contain counterfeit drugs," he said.
"As soon as the bureau gets involved, you've exposed yourself to possible legal problems. Now you can turn to TMPACT to verify the authenticity of your drug supply without having to worry about that, because they're a civic organization," he said.
Starlux Airlines, Taiwan’s newest international carrier, has announced it would apply to join the Oneworld global airline alliance before the end of next year. In an investor conference on Monday, Starlux Airlines chief executive officer Glenn Chai (翟健華) said joining the alliance would help it access Taiwan. Chai said that if accepted, Starlux would work with other airlines in the alliance on flight schedules, passenger transits and frequent flyer programs. The Oneworld alliance has 13 members, including American Airlines, British Airways, Cathay Pacific and Qantas, and serves more than 900 destinations in 170 territories. Joining Oneworld would also help boost
A new tropical storm formed late yesterday near Guam and is to approach closest to Taiwan on Thursday, the Central Weather Administration (CWA) said. Tropical Storm Pulasan became the 14th named storm of the year at 9:25pm yesterday, the agency said. As of 8am today, it was near Guam traveling northwest at 21kph, it said. The storm’s structure is relatively loose and conditions for strengthening are limited, WeatherRisk analyst Wu Sheng-yu (吳聖宇) said on Facebook. Its path is likely to be similar to Typhoon Bebinca, which passed north of Taiwan over Japan’s Ryukyu Islands and made landfall in Shanghai this morning, he said. However, it
Taiwan's Gold Apollo Co (金阿波羅通信) said today that the pagers used in detonations in Lebanon the day before were not made by it, but by a company called BAC which has a license to use its brand. At least nine people were killed and nearly 3,000 wounded when pagers used by Hezbollah members detonated simultaneously across Lebanon yesterday. Images of destroyed pagers analyzed by Reuters showed a format and stickers on the back that were consistent with pagers made by Gold Apollo. A senior Lebanese security source told Reuters that Hezbollah had ordered 5,000 pagers from Taiwan-based Gold Apollo. "The product was not
COLD FACTS: ‘Snow skin’ mooncakes, made with a glutinous rice skin and kept at a low temperature, have relatively few calories compared with other mooncakes Traditional mooncakes are a typical treat for many Taiwanese in the lead-up to the Mid-Autumn Festival, but a Taipei-based dietitian has urged people not to eat more than one per day and not to have them every day due to their high fat and calorie content. As mooncakes contain a lot of oil and sugar, they can have negative health effects on older people and those with diabetes, said Lai Yu-han (賴俞含), a dietitian at Taipei Hospital of the Ministry of Health and Welfare. “The maximum you can have is one mooncake a day, and do not eat them every day,” Lai