The nation has taken further steps in ensuring the safety of drinking water, with the Environmental Protection Administration (EPA) amending its guidelines to include regulations for dioxin and chlorite.
Regulations for lead and bromate levels in drinking water were also amended.
"Taiwan is the second nation in the world after the US to regulate dioxin in drinking water," said Yuan Shaw-ying (
"The decision to include dioxin in the regulations came from the EPA's research on toxicology as well as drinking water regulations in developed countries," Yuan said.
A dioxin duck incident two years ago, as well as the dioxin lamb incident the following year, also contributed to the EPA's decision to regulate local food and water safety with more stringent guidelines, he said.
Dioxin is a persistent organic pollutant, meaning it accumulates in the food chain, he said.
For example, bigger fish may have a higher level of dioxins because of the number of smaller fish they ingest, he said.
Citing WHO classification, Yuan said that dioxin, which is mostly water-insoluble, had been identified as a carcinogen.
The most common method of releasing the notorious pollutant into the air or the food chain is through "the incineration of most things one can think of, including garbage, or through forest fires," he said.
The new regulations mandate that water purification plants within a 5km radius of any major pollution source must pass an annual examination and be certified that the drinking water they produce has a dioxin level of below 12 picogram-WHO-toxin equivalent per liter (pg-WHO-TEQ/L).
Drawing from the EPA's data, Yuan assured the public of the safety of local drinking water, saying that the raw water (before purification) and purified water at local water purification plants had dioxin levels of 0.010-0.079 pg-WHO-TEQ/L and 0.002-0.017 pg-WHO-TEQ/L respectively -- both of which were far below the new regulations.
The EPA also lowered the cap for maximum lead density in drinking water from 0.05mg/liter to 0.01mg/liter, effective Dec. 25, 2013.
"The new regulation was created to protect newborns and young children, who are especially sensitive to lead levels in their environment," Yuan said.
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
POLICE INVESTIGATING: A man said he quit his job as a nurse at Taipei Tzu Chi Hospital as he had been ‘disgusted’ by the behavior of his colleagues A man yesterday morning wrote online that he had witnessed nurses taking photographs and touching anesthetized patients inappropriately in Taipei Tzu Chi Hospital’s operating theaters. The man surnamed Huang (黃) wrote on the Professional Technology Temple bulletin board that during his six-month stint as a nurse at the hospital, he had seen nurses taking pictures of patients, including of their private parts, after they were anesthetized. Some nurses had also touched patients inappropriately and children were among those photographed, he said. Huang said this “disgusted” him “so much” that “he felt the need to reveal these unethical acts in the operating theater
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