Representatives of the Taiwan Environmental Protection Union (TEPU) yesterday took an appeal to the Presidential Office, alleging a weather radar in Chiku Township (七股), Tainan County, was causing a high rate of mental retardation and other illnesses in the area.
Accompanied by alleged victims of the electromagnetic waves emitted by the Doppler weather radar station in Yencheng Village (
The Doppler radar station was built in 2001 and is one of four such stations in the country. The bureau's Weather Integration and Nowcasting System (WINS) employs Doppler radar both to monitor and predict precipitation.
PHOTO: MEGGIE LU, TAIPEI TIMES
A woman surnamed Chang (張), whose six-year-old granddaughter was diagnosed with severe mental retardation (MR) this month, attended the appeal. Chang's granddaughter is the third in the family to be diagnosed with MR after Chang's two youngest sons received the same diagnosis, Chen said.
Chen said that medical tests had revealed no genetic predisposition in the family for MR, while lead poisoning and radioactive contamination in the area had also been ruled out.
Chen said that, in addition to MR cases, the village had also seen an increase in the incidence of hearing loss, brain damage and cancer since the installment of the radar station.
She cited 12 articles by international scientists to support her claim that radioactivity in residential areas is harmful to human health.
Chen said National Taiwan University and the Industrial Technology Research Institute had measured the electromagnetic waves in the village at 4,027 and 84,200 microwatts per square meter respectively. A report by US scientist S. Amy Sage last month suggested that levels above 1,000 microwatts per square meter be avoided for health reasons.
After meeting a Presidential Office representative, Chen said the the staffer had promised to relay the group's appeal to the president.
In addition to the appeal, Chiku residents demonstrated yesterday against the radar's presence in their community.
The weather bureau said in a press release later yesterday that the research TEPU had cited concerned low-frequency electromagnetic waves, microwaves and handheld radar, adding that Doppler waves are different.
In addition, the radar is perched 30m above the ground, it said, adding that since the installment of the station in 2001, the bureau has employed independent agencies to test electromagnetic levels on five occasions.
The most recent electromagnetic test, conducted by the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA), was completed last week, the statement said, adding that electromagnetic waves were measured at 25,200 microwatts per square meter directly around the radar and 10,200 microwatts per square meter near the closest residency. The release said this was 0.1 percent to 0.25 percent of the EPA's safety limit.
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:
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
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