Council of Agriculture (COA) and Department of Health (DOH) officials yesterday assured the public of the safety of domestic dairy products and promised to publicize test results on Monday following a food scare involving AGV Corp (愛之味) products.
“We have very strict regulations. Every farm needs to handle its dairy products very carefully because they will not pass our tests even if only a very small amount of residual medication is found [in the milk],” said Huang Ying-hao (黃英豪), chief of the COA’s Department of Animal Industry Development, at a press conference held by the Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) caucus.
Huang’s assurance came after a front-page story in Wednesday’s Chinese-language Apple Daily that accused an employee of the Wenbin Farm in Yunlin County of selling milk that may have contained excessive antibiotic residues.
The COA’s Statute Governing Animal Medication (動物用藥使用標準) bans the sale of milk from cows that have just finished medication for mastitis.
The story said a member of staff surnamed Lee collected the milk from four other farms located in Changhua and Miaoli counties at a cost of NT$8 per kilogram every Wednesday and Sunday and then sold the milk to AGV’s dairy processing factory at the Farmer’s Association of Miaoli County for NT$18 per kilogram.
The report showed pictures of Lee’s milk truck, which bore the AGV “general milk (將軍牛乳),” logo while quoting Pan Jen-yen (潘仁炎), a quality manager from the factory, identifying the truck as the vehicle that had delivered dairy produce from AGV-contracted farms to the factory over the past two decades.
The story said the newspaper sent a bottle of the milk it obtained from Lee to a lab and the results showed the milk contained traces of an “unknown anti-bacterial substance” that did not come from common antibiotics used by farms to treat cows.
The story also said the results from four other AGV dairy products the newspaper purchased showed residues of antibiotics, but the amounts did not exceed the COA’s regulations.
AGV issued a statement on Wednesday which said it was recalling all dairy products manufactured at the processing plant indefinitely.
Pao Tse-min (鮑澤民), an AGV director-general, said the company only used certified farms and certified milk, adding that the company did not do any business with Wenbin Farm.
David Cheng (鄭慧文), director of the DOH’s Bureau of Food Sanitation, said the bureau had sent personnel to Miaoli to investigate the matter.
He guaranteed the safety of dairy products, saying that all of the 243 samples the DOH tested last year met the legal standards.
When asked what related government agencies would do if similar cases occurred, Huang said though he believed domestic dairy companies would safeguard their reputations, the council would also increase its random inspections.
AGING: While Japan has 22 submarines, Taiwan only operates four, two of which were commissioned by the US in 1945 and 1946, and transferred to Taiwan in 1973 Taiwan would need at least 12 submarines to reach modern fleet capabilities, CSBC Corp, Taiwan chairman Chen Cheng-hung (陳政宏) said in an interview broadcast on Friday, citing a US assessment. CSBC is testing the nation’s first indigenous defense submarine, the Hai Kun (海鯤, Narwhal), which is scheduled to be delivered to the navy next month or in July. The Hai Kun has completed torpedo-firing tests and is scheduled to undergo overnight sea trials, Chen said on an SET TV military affairs program. Taiwan would require at least 12 submarines to establish a modern submarine force after assessing the nation’s operational environment and defense
A white king snake that frightened passengers and caused a stir on a Taipei MRT train on Friday evening has been claimed by its owner, who would be fined, Taipei Rapid Transit Corp (TRTC) said yesterday. A person on Threads posted that he thought he was lucky to find an empty row of seats on Friday after boarding a train on the Bannan (Blue) Line, only to spot a white snake with black stripes after sitting down. Startled, he jumped up, he wrote, describing the encounter as “terrifying.” “Taipei’s rat control plan: Release snakes on the metro,” one person wrote in reply, referring
The coast guard today said that it had disrupted "illegal" operations by a Chinese research ship in waters close to the nation and driven it away, part of what Taipei sees a provocative pattern of China's stepped up maritime activities. The coast guard said that it on Thursday last week detected the Chinese ship Tongji (同濟號), which was commissioned only last year, 29 nautical miles (54km) southeast of the southern tip of Taiwan, although just outside restricted waters. The ship was observed lowering ropes into the water, suspected to be the deployment of scientific instruments for "illegal" survey operations, and the coast
An inauguration ceremony was held yesterday for the Danjiang Bridge, the world’s longest single-mast asymmetric cable-stayed bridge, ahead of its official opening to traffic on Tuesday, marking a major milestone after nearly three decades of planning and construction. At the ceremony in New Taipei City attended by President William Lai (賴清德), Premier Cho Jung-tai (卓榮泰), Minister of Transportation and Communications Chen Shih-kai (陳世凱) and New Taipei City Mayor Hou Yu-ih (侯友宜), the bridge was hailed as both an engineering landmark and a long-awaited regional transport link connecting Tamsui (淡水) and Bali (八里)
RSS