The Taipei City Government started an inspection of private clinics that allegedly offer placenta shots after a local TV talk show host was rushed to hospital after an allergic reaction to illegal placenta shots.
Taipei Deputy Mayor Allen Chiu (邱文祥), a former commissioner of the city’s Health Department, said placenta shots are prohibited in Taiwan, and doctors and clinics that provide them could face fines of up to NT$250,000 (US$7,900).
Chiu made the comments after TV talk show host Li Jing (利菁) admitted spending more than NT$1 million on placenta shots since last year at a clinic in Taipei.
She was hospitalized last week, suffering from a serious allergy after getting the shots. Defending the effect of the placenta on rejuvenation, however, on Monday she called for legalization of placenta shots.
“Placenta shots are legal in Japan and Switzerland. Why do we have to travel to another country to get the shots? Taiwan should legalize the product and let consumers get legal placenta shots,” she said.
Chiu yesterday brushed off Li’s comments, saying that the government would not consider legalizing the shots before the sources of the placentas could be identified.
“We are also not sure about the curative effect of placentas. To protect public health, we have no plans to legalize these products,” he said.
The city government has launched an investigation into the case, and will also check other private clinics for the use of placenta shots. Head of the department’s healthcare management office, Kao Wei-chun (高偉君), said an initial inspection found that the clinic gave Li eight shots, but the shots contained mostly vitamins and glucose.
The doctors and nurses that gave the prescription and the shots could have violated the Physician’s Act (醫師法) and the Medical Care Act (醫療法), and may face fines of up to NT$250,000 if further probes find they provided placenta shots at the clinic, she said.
Former Czech Republic-based Taiwanese researcher Cheng Yu-chin (鄭宇欽) has been sentenced to seven years in prison on espionage-related charges, China’s Ministry of State Security announced yesterday. China said Cheng was a spy for Taiwan who “masqueraded as a professor” and that he was previously an assistant to former Cabinet secretary-general Cho Jung-tai (卓榮泰). President-elect William Lai (賴清德) on Wednesday last week announced Cho would be his premier when Lai is inaugurated next month. Today is China’s “National Security Education Day.” The Chinese ministry yesterday released a video online showing arrests over the past 10 years of people alleged to be
THE HAWAII FACTOR: While a 1965 opinion said an attack on Hawaii would not trigger Article 5, the text of the treaty suggests the state is covered, the report says NATO could be drawn into a conflict in the Taiwan Strait if Chinese forces attacked the US mainland or Hawaii, a NATO Defense College report published on Monday says. The report, written by James Lee, an assistant research fellow at Academia Sinica’s Institute of European and American Studies, states that under certain conditions a Taiwan contingency could trigger Article 5 of NATO, under which an attack against any member of the alliance is considered an attack against all members, necessitating a response. Article 6 of the North Atlantic Treaty specifies that an armed attack in the territory of any member in Europe,
LIKE FAMILY: People now treat dogs and cats as family members. They receive the same medical treatments and tests as humans do, a veterinary association official said The number of pet dogs and cats in Taiwan has officially outnumbered the number of human newborns last year, data from the Ministry of Agriculture’s pet registration information system showed. As of last year, Taiwan had 94,544 registered pet dogs and 137,652 pet cats, the data showed. By contrast, 135,571 babies were born last year. Demand for medical care for pet animals has also risen. As of Feb. 29, there were 5,773 veterinarians in Taiwan, 3,993 of whom were for pet animals, statistics from the Animal and Plant Health Inspection Agency showed. In 2022, the nation had 3,077 pediatricians. As of last
XINJIANG: Officials are conducting a report into amending an existing law or to enact a special law to prohibit goods using forced labor Taiwan is mulling an amendment prohibiting the importation of goods using forced labor, similar to the Uyghur Forced Labor Prevention Act (UFLPA) passed by the US Congress in 2021 that imposed limits on goods produced using forced labor in China’s Xinjiang region. A government official who wished to remain anonymous said yesterday that as the US customs law explicitly prohibits the importation of goods made using forced labor, in 2021 it passed the specialized UFLPA to limit the importation of cotton and other goods from China’s Xinjiang Uyghur region. Taiwan does not have the legal basis to prohibit the importation of goods