HEALTH
Blood banks short of blood
In view of a nationwide blood shortage since the Lunar New Year holidays, the Blood Services Foundation yesterday called on the public to donate blood. Mackay Memorial Hospital’s Department of Laboratory Medicine chief He Hsin-chung (何信重) said there’s a blood shortage after almost every Lunar New Year. “The situation this year, however, is especially severe,” he said, attributing the reduced interest in donating blood to the low temperatures over the past two weeks and an influenza outbreak. According to sources, the supply in blood banks has reached a six-year low. Given the shortage, aside from seeking new sources, such as calling on people to donate, the other solution is to limit blood transfusions, He said. All of the limitations imposed would be put into practice with the understanding that medical care is not impaired, He added.
ENVIRONMENT
Electric boat launched
The government inaugurated an electric-powered boat in Sun Moon Lake (日月潭) in Nantou County yesterday to promote low-carbon tourism. The twin-hulled safety patrol vessel unveiled on is “just a beginning,” Minister of Transportation and Communications Mao Chi-kuo (毛治國) said at the launch ceremony. The boat is aimed at encouraging companies to replace their diesel tour yachts to reduce noise and air pollution in the area, he said. The ministry said it would offer subsidies to local companies starting this year to help them replace their boats. However, Wang Fen-sheng (王汾勝), the head of an association for the area’s tourist yacht companies, said the government incentives are insufficient because electric vessels are so much more expensive than diesel ones. Also, the government’s eco-friendly promotion comes amid fierce business competition in the area, with 137 private tourist yachts on the lake at present, he said.
TOURISM
Michelin issues Taiwan guide
The world-renowned Michelin Guide has published a guide for Taiwan in English and French, which will hit bookstore shelves soon. The 388-page guide lists 38 towns and regions in Taiwan as three-star must-see destinations, 142 as two-star recommended destinations and 138 as one-star interesting destinations. The must-see destinations include Taipei 101, Longshan Temple, Chiang Kai-shek Memorial Hall and the National Palace Museum, and the two-star destinations include Sun Moon Lake, Yushan, Greater Kaohsiung, Hsinchu and the Eastern Taiwan Coastal Highway. The new Michelin tour guides are expected to help attract more foreign visitors to Taiwan.
HEALTH
Revise drug system: alliance
The Taiwan Breast Cancer Alliance has complained that the National Health Insurance (NHI) drug reimbursement system was not transparent enough and called for revision of the payment formula. It said most late-stage cancer patients find the target drug payment system too expensive, but cannot do without the medicines. Hsieh Ruey-kuen (謝瑞坤), president of Taiwan Total Cancer Care Foundation said sometimes the cost of reasonably priced, effective drugs is not reimbursed. He suggested that the government adopt the quality-adjusted life year model, a formula used in Western countries to help decisionmakers decide which drugs merit reimbursement.
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