Health authorities have seized more products after discovering that another upstream food additive manufacturer had been adding the chemical di-isononyl phthalate (DINP) to clouding agents, the Department of Health said yesterday.
The health department said Pin Han Perfumery Co in Tucheng District (土城), New Taipei City (新北市) had been illegally adding DINP to its clouding agents.
Clouding agents are used to create opacity in foodstuffs and beverages to make them more appealing to consumers.
Photo: CNA
Investigators searched Pin Han on Friday evening and summoned owner Chen Che-hsiung (陳哲雄), his wife, Wang Fen (王粉), and his son Chen Wei-cheng (陳威丞) for questioning.
Banciao judges yesterday morning approved prosecutors’ application to detain Chen Che--hsiung and Wang. Chen Wei-cheng was released on NT$100,000 (US$3,465) bail.
As a result of the latest finding, the Department of Health seized sports drinks and asparagus juice made by two companies in central and southern Taiwan, as well as the products from a cooking oil company in Kaohsiung.
Food and Drug Administration Director-General Kang Jaw-jou (康照洲) said DINP is a chemical similar to di(2-ethylhexyl) phthalate (DEHP), which was recently discovered in many local beverages and dietary supplements.
Kang said 54,822 cartons of sports drink and 36,533 cartons of asparagus juice, as well as 128kg of clouding agent used by Uni--President Enterprises Corp in Greater Tainan, have been seized, along with 5,682 cartons of sports drink and 13.82kg of clouding agent used by Maida Foods Corp in Yunlin County, as well as various products from Tai Hwa Oil Industrial Co in Greater Kaohsiung.
He said that both DINP and DEHP are legal when used in the manufacture of plastic products, but can not be legally used as food additives.
In animal experiments, DINP has been found to have less adverse health effects than DEHP, although it has been found to cause organ damage in rodents, Kang said.
The EU has not listed DINP as a carcinogen, he said.
DINP, like DEHP, is flushed from the body quickly, he said.
Additional reporting by Rich Chang
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,
FLU SEASON: Twenty-six severe cases were reported from Tuesday last week to Monday, including a seven-year-old girl diagnosed with influenza-associated encephalopathy Nearly 140,000 people sought medical assistance for diarrhea last week, the Centers for Disease Control (CDC) said on Tuesday. From April 7 to Saturday last week, 139,848 people sought medical help for diarrhea-related illness, a 15.7 percent increase from last week’s 120,868 reports, CDC Epidemic Intelligence Center Deputy Director Lee Chia-lin (李佳琳) said. The number of people who reported diarrhea-related illness last week was the fourth highest in the same time period over the past decade, Lee said. Over the past four weeks, 203 mass illness cases had been reported, nearly four times higher than the 54 cases documented in the same period
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
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: