Democratic Progressive Party (DPP) Legislator Huang Sue-ying (黃淑英) and the Taiwan Association for Human Rights (TAHR) yesterday urged the Department of Health to stop collecting human blood samples for the Taiwan Biobank project until relevant laws are passed.
The Department of Health initiated the project to collect blood samples from 200,000 people for research into the connection between human genes and diseases such as diabetes and cardiovascular ailments. The Academia Sinica is implementing the project.
While agreeing that the project had a positive objective, Huang and the TAHR said the data could be put to inappropriate use without a set of written regulations, thus violating participants’ human rights.
“Since there is no law regulating how researchers are supposed to use the samples, how do we know if they won’t be used for non-medical purposes, such as commercial use?” Huang said at a news conference at the legislature.
TAHR chairman Lin Chia-fan (林佳範) condemned an ethics committee at Academia Sinica for approving the project.
“As there’s neither a law nor a consensus, the ethics committee should not simply make a decision via a vote,” Lin said.
Around 1,000 people in Tainan and Chiayi have already given blood samples.
Huang said the research team might have deceived the public by disguising the project as a medical examination.
“If you look at the poster for the project, would you think that your blood sample was being collected for a biological database?” Huang said while pointing to a poster.
The poster reads: “It takes you and me together to make our next generation healthier.” On the bottom of the poster, it says that participants will be tested for body fat, heart rate, blood pressure and bone density while blood and urine samples will be collected.
“More than 53 percent of people who already took part in the project thought they were having a medical examination,” Huang said, citing figures from the Academia Sinica.
When questioned by Huang during a question-and-answer session at the legislature, Department of Health Minister Yeh Ching-chuan (葉金川) said that he wasn’t aware of the project, but agreed with Huang.
“The sample collection should be stopped if it violates human rights,” Yeh said.
An increase in Taiwanese boats using China-made automatic identification systems (AIS) could confuse coast guards patrolling waters off Taiwan’s southwest coast and become a loophole in the national security system, sources familiar with the matter said yesterday. Taiwan ADIZ, a Facebook page created by enthusiasts who monitor Chinese military activities in airspace and waters off Taiwan’s southwest coast, on Saturday identified what seemed to be a Chinese cargo container ship near Penghu County. The Coast Guard Administration went to the location after receiving the tip and found that it was a Taiwanese yacht, which had a Chinese AIS installed. Similar instances had also
GOOD DIPLOMACY: The KMT has maintained close contact with representative offices in Taiwan and had extended an invitation to Russia as well, the KMT said The Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) would “appropriately handle” the fallout from an invitation it had extended to Russia’s representative to Taipei to attend its international banquet last month, KMT Chairman Eric Chu (朱立倫) said yesterday. US and EU representatives in Taiwan boycotted the event, and only later agreed to attend after the KMT rescinded its invitation to the Russian representative. The KMT has maintained long-term close contact with all representative offices and embassies in Taiwan, and had extended the invitation as a practice of good diplomacy, Chu said. “Some EU countries have expressed their opinions of Russia, and the KMT respects that,” he
VIGILANCE: The military is paying close attention to actions that might damage peace and stability in the region, the deputy minister of national defense said The People’s Republic of China (PRC) might consider initiating a hack on Taiwanese networks on May 20, the day of the inauguration ceremony of president-elect William Lai (賴清德), sources familiar with cross-strait issues said. While US Secretary of State Anthony Blinken’s statement of the US expectation “that all sides will conduct themselves with restraint and prudence in the period ahead” would prevent military actions by China, Beijing could still try to sabotage Taiwan’s inauguration ceremony, the source said. China might gain access to the video screens outside of the Presidential Office Building and display embarrassing messages from Beijing, such as congratulating Lai
Four China Coast Guard ships briefly sailed through prohibited waters near Kinmen County, Taipei said, urging Beijing to stop actions that endanger navigation safety. The Chinese ships entered waters south of Kinmen, 5km from the Chinese city of Xiamen, at about 3:30pm on Monday, the Coast Guard Administration said in a statement later the same day. The ships “sailed out of our prohibited and restricted waters” about an hour later, the agency said, urging Beijing to immediately stop “behavior that endangers navigation safety.” Ministry of National Defense spokesman Sun Li-fang (孫立方) yesterday told reporters that Taiwan would boost support to the Coast Guard