The Consumer Protection Commission said yesterday that 17.5 percent of school lunches marketed as “nutritional” failed to pass food safety checks and that some even contain banned chemicals that can cause severe blood problems and nervous system disorders.
The commission said it checked 57 meat and vegetable items from 18 meal providers in September and found that 10 of the samples contained pesticide residue. The most controversial chemical substance found — chloramphenicol — could cause severe blood problems such as anemia, low blood platelet counts, low white blood cell counts and leukemia, according to the commission.
The substance was banned from use in animals and humans in 2002, the commission said.
Lin Ja-liang (林杰樑), a clinical toxicology specialist at Chang Gung Memorial Hospital in Linkou District (林口), New Taipei City (新北市), said people with weak immune systems will respond to the substance regardless of the amount. Some patients can develop aplastic anemia just by using eye drops containing chloramphenicol, Lin added.
Long-term ingestion of chloramphenicol can hamper the development of the hematopoietic system and damage children’s immune system, said Wu Chia-cheng (吳家誠), a chemistry professor at National Taiwan Normal University. Other pesticides found in the samples, such as acetamiprid, dimethoate and carbendazim, are neurotoxic, which could lead to uncoordinated muscle movements and problems with neural responses, Wu said.
The amount of carbendazim found was 21 times higher than the standard level in one sample of oyster cabbage, the commission said, adding that the substance is listed as a possible carcinogen by the US Environmental Protection Agency.
In addition, the commission said two samples containing high levels of pesticide residue and chloramphenicol even bear CAS labels, a mark of quality provided by the Council of Agriculture. In response, the council said it would conduct more random checks and if the providers fail to meet the standard, they will be removed from the CAS list.
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
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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