The amount of the substance di-isodecyl phthalate (DIDP) found in the antibiotic Augmentin manufactured by leading global pharmaceutical company GlaxoSmithKline PLC (GSK) is within safe limits, Department of Health (DOH) officials said on Thursday.
The amount of DIDP found in each dose of the drug is below 2mcg, which is far lower than the 9mg allowable daily limit under EU regulations, Food and Drug Administration Director-General Kang Jaw-jou (康照洲) said.
Kang said the chemical content in the drug was not harmful and that the department has not asked GSK to remove the drug from store shelves.
Augmentin is primarily used to treat bacterial infections, such as ear infections, pneumonia, bronchitis and urinary tract infections.
Kang’s remarks came after department tests on samples of the drug showed that it contained between 9 parts per million (ppm) and 13.7ppm of DIDP.
Supplements, sport drinks and juices have recently been discovered to contain plasticizers, used as a substitute for more expensive ingredients in clouding agents, a common food additive.
In response to the department’s call for clarification, GSK’s Taiwan branch issued a statement saying that it was conducting further investigations to determine the source of the plasticizer.
However, several major hospitals in the country have already suspended use of the strawberry version of the drug out of safety considerations until the matter is settled by the department.
Meanwhile, in related developments, Department of Health Minister Chiu Wen-ta (邱文達) said the government has not yet found any clinical evidence of suspected health problems resulting from consumption of foodstuffs containing di(2-ethylhexyl) phthalate, or DEHP, or other kinds of plasticizers.
Amid the food scare, a total of 124 medical institutes have advised people on health risks caused by consumption of plasticizer-tainted products and performed examinations since May 27.
Chiu cited reports that quoted Gregory Hartl, a spokesman for the WHO’s Global Alert and Response, as saying that DEHP is not immediately life-threatening.
The International Agency for Research on Cancer, an institution under the WHO that coordinates and conducts research on the causes of cancer, has concluded that there is “inadequate evidence” in humans for the carcinogenicity of DEHP, Chiu said.
Some experts have suggested exposure to DEHP causes a decrease in sperm production, Chiu said, adding the department would continue to investigate health risks associated with plasticizer exposure.
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:
UNAWARE: Many people sit for long hours every day and eat unhealthy foods, putting them at greater risk of developing one of the ‘three highs,’ an expert said More than 30 percent of adults aged 40 or older who underwent a government-funded health exam were unaware they had at least one of the “three highs” — high blood pressure, high blood lipids or high blood sugar, the Health Promotion Administration (HPA) said yesterday. Among adults aged 40 or older who said they did not have any of the “three highs” before taking the health exam, more than 30 percent were found to have at least one of them, Adult Preventive Health Examination Service data from 2022 showed. People with long-term medical conditions such as hypertension or diabetes usually do not
POLICE INVESTIGATING: A man said he quit his job as a nurse at Taipei Tzu Chi Hospital as he had been ‘disgusted’ by the behavior of his colleagues A man yesterday morning wrote online that he had witnessed nurses taking photographs and touching anesthetized patients inappropriately in Taipei Tzu Chi Hospital’s operating theaters. The man surnamed Huang (黃) wrote on the Professional Technology Temple bulletin board that during his six-month stint as a nurse at the hospital, he had seen nurses taking pictures of patients, including of their private parts, after they were anesthetized. Some nurses had also touched patients inappropriately and children were among those photographed, he said. Huang said this “disgusted” him “so much” that “he felt the need to reveal these unethical acts in the operating theater
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