A total of seven proposals aiming to regulate the use of the feed additive ractopamine have been submitted to the legislature, which has earned a say in major policy decisions, at least during this legislative session.
Among the proposed amendments to the Act Governing Food Sanitation (食品衛生管理法), six different versions proposed by the Taiwan Solidarity Union (TSU) caucus, the Democratic Progressive Party (DPP) caucus, and Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) lawmakers suggested maintaining the ban on ractopamine in imported meats.
The amendment from the People First Party (PFP) caucus was the only one that proposed allowing imports of meat with ractopamine residue, but only after the Codex Alimentarius Commission, the international food standards body, approved draft standards for maximum residue levels (MRLs) for ractopamine.
Executive Yuan spokesman Philip Yang (楊永明) declined to comment on the proposals, saying the government had not yet decided its stance on the issue.
Taiwan has been under pressure from the US to allow the import of US beef containing traces of ractopamine, banned in the country since 2006, and the ban could be lifted via an executive order by the government legally mandating permissible levels of feed additives.
Based on their opposition to any relaxation of the ban, the DPP and the TSU both sought to restrict administrative discretion in the -interest of public health.
The DPP-proposed amendment stipulated that standards on permissible levels of pesticide residue or veterinary drugs set by the government “shall be subject to legislative approval before implementation.”
Similarly, the TSU version proposed that the government “shall refer the standards to the legislature for approval before implementation when it comes to substances deemed harmful to human health.”
The DPP also sought to write into the Act Governing Food Sanitation prohibition of the use of beta-agonists, the class of drug to which ractopamine belongs, and that the tolerance for beta-agonists in livestock products, including brains, eyes, spines, ground meat, offal and related products shall be zero.
KMT Legislator Yang Li-huan (楊麗環) drafted a proposal setting out a zero-tolerance policy for the meat products with traces of beta-agonists and imposed a fine of up to NT$6 million (US$202,000) for those found to be in violation.
KMT Legislator Huang Chao-shun (黃昭順) put forward an amendment that proposed even more severe measures to keep Taiwan’s animal husbandry sector completely free of beta-agonists.
Under her proposal, meat products with traces of beta-agonists would be defined as substances harmful to human health, and their production, processing, sale, import and export prohibited.
Countries and areas that have recorded cases of bovine spongiform encephalopathy (BSE, or “mad cow disease”) or a disease in humans called variant Creutzfeldt-Jakob disease (vCJD), that allow the use of beta-agonists, and have had cases of meat found with traces of beta-agonists would be defined by as “high-risk countries and areas.”
Huang said that meat imports from such places should carry a warning label identifying the country of origin and must be subject to safety testing conducted at the place of production, national borders and in markets.
The government should closely monitor meat products imported from such places by verifying documentation, checking whether shipments are marked with detailed product information, opening a high percentage of containers at borders to conduct food safety tests and provide access information on suspected problem products immediately, the proposal said.
The PFP argued that Taiwan should lift the ban if the Codex Alimentarius Commission approved the draft MRLs recommended by the Joint FAO/WHO Expert Committee on Food Additives to bring its local rules into line with international standards when they are established.
Its proposal stipulated that permissible levels of pesticide residue or veterinary drugs in the country should not be higher than the standards set up by the Codex Alimentarius Commission.
On Friday the Executive Yuan reached a consensus with lawmakers opposed to lifting the ban that it would not allow the import of US beef containing traces of ractopamine via an executive order before the legislative session ends at the end of May or June.
The Taipei Department of Health yesterday said it has launched a probe into a restaurant at Far Eastern Sogo Xinyi A13 Department Store after a customer died of suspected food poisoning. A preliminary investigation on Sunday found missing employee health status reports and unsanitary kitchen utensils at Polam Kopitiam (寶林茶室) in the department store’s basement food court, the department said. No direct relationship between the food poisoning death and the restaurant was established, as no food from the day of the incident was available for testing and no other customers had reported health complaints, it said, adding that the investigation is ongoing. Later
REVENGE TRAVEL: A surge in ticket prices should ease this year, but inflation would likely keep tickets at a higher price than before the pandemic Scoot is to offer six additional flights between Singapore and Northeast Asia, with all routes transiting Taipei from April 1, as the budget airline continues to resume operations that were paused during the COVID-19 pandemic, a Scoot official said on Thursday. Vice president of sales Lee Yong Sin (李榮新) said at a gathering with reporters in Taipei that the number of flights from Singapore to Japan and South Korea with a stop in Taiwan would increase from 15 to 21 each week. That change means the number of the Singapore-Taiwan-Tokyo flights per week would increase from seven to 12, while Singapore-Taiwan-Seoul
BAD NEIGHBORS: China took fourth place among countries spreading disinformation, with Hong Kong being used as a hub to spread propaganda, a V-Dem study found Taiwan has been rated as the country most affected by disinformation for the 11th consecutive year in a study by the global research project Varieties of Democracy (V-Dem). The nation continues to be a target of disinformation originating from China, and Hong Kong is increasingly being used as a base from which to disseminate that disinformation, the report said. After Taiwan, Latvia and Palestine ranked second and third respectively, while Nicaragua, North Korea, Venezuela and China, in that order, were the countries that spread the most disinformation, the report said. Each country listed in the report was given a score,
POOR PREPARATION: Cultures can form on food that is out of refrigeration for too long and cooking does not reliably neutralize their toxins, an epidemiologist said Medical professionals yesterday said that suspected food poisoning deaths revolving around a restaurant at Far Eastern Department Store Xinyi A13 Store in Taipei could have been caused by one of several types of bacterium. Ho Mei-shang (何美鄉), an epidemiologist at Academia Sinica’s Institute of Biomedical Sciences, wrote on Facebook that the death of a 39-year-old customer of the restaurant suggests the toxin involved was either “highly potent or present in massive large quantities.” People who ate at the restaurant showed symptoms within hours of consuming the food, suggesting that the poisoning resulted from contamination by a toxin and not infection of the