■ SPORTS
Chen Chu won't go to China
Kaohsiung Mayor Chen Chu (陳菊), who was invited to attend a sports conference in Beijing starting on April 24, decided yesterday to have Deputy Mayor Cheng Wen-lung (鄭文隆) attend on her behalf. Chen, a member of the Democratic Progressive Party, told journalists one day after her aide talked with Mainland Affairs Council officials in Taipei about the invitation that she had decided to skip the conference because it conflicts with a Kaohsiung City Council session which she has to attend to field councilors' questions. Chen had been invited to the conference to present a briefing on Kaohsiung City's preparations for hosting the 2009 World Games.
■ HEALTH
Hemophilia breakthrough
Local researchers have successfully extracted blood clotting proteins from pig's milk, revealing new possibilities in the development of medicines to treat hemophilia, according to a report released yesterday by the Animal Technology Institute Taiwan (ATIT) in Miaoli. ATIT officials explained that the protein they have extracted is identical to the human clotting factor IX, which is used in treating type B hemophilia. ATIT officials said that medicines for hemophilia are extremely expensive -- the production cost of hemophiliac medication is about US$66,000 per gram, and hundreds of thousands of NT dollars can be spent monthly on the medicine for a single hemophiliac. However, the new method can produce greater amounts in a relatively simple process -- the volume of clotting proteins in pig milk is 100-400 times that in human plasma, they added.
■ HEALTH
Emergency center proposed
The legislature's Sanitation, Environment and Social Welfare Committee yesterday approved an amendment requiring the Department of Health (DOH) to establish an emergency medical command center to facilitate the delivery of emergency medical services. The center would be responsible for coordinating and communicating with medical authorities around the country to meet major emergency medical needs, the draft amendment said. The DOH would also be required to team up with medical institutions to form regional emergency medical reaction centers that would help the emergency medical command center in its efforts to integrate medical resources and conduct round-the-clock monitoring work in case of a major pandemic. The draft bill stipulates that participating medical institutions must post medical professionals in the regional emergency medical reaction centers year-round. The amendments still have to be reviewed by the whole legislature.
■ CRIME
Wang You-theng denied bail
US judges denied fugitive Rebar Group chairman Wang You-theng's (王又曾) request for bail on Wednesday morning, the Central News Agency (CNA) reported. CNA said that Wang then requested that he be transferred to another detention facility with more Chinese-speaking detainees because he was not in good health and could not speak English. It was not clear at press time if the judges had granted the request. Wang fled overseas in late December after allegedly embezzling massive amounts of money from the Rebar Group. Taiwanese prosecutors have sought a 30-year prison sentence and an unprecedented fine of NT$1.71 billion (US$52.13 million) for Wang.
FLU SEASON: Twenty-six severe cases were reported from Tuesday last week to Monday, including a seven-year-old girl diagnosed with influenza-associated encephalopathy Nearly 140,000 people sought medical assistance for diarrhea last week, the Centers for Disease Control (CDC) said on Tuesday. From April 7 to Saturday last week, 139,848 people sought medical help for diarrhea-related illness, a 15.7 percent increase from last week’s 120,868 reports, CDC Epidemic Intelligence Center Deputy Director Lee Chia-lin (李佳琳) said. The number of people who reported diarrhea-related illness last week was the fourth highest in the same time period over the past decade, Lee said. Over the past four weeks, 203 mass illness cases had been reported, nearly four times higher than the 54 cases documented in the same period
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
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