A Taiwanese inspection delegation concluded yesterday that beef products imported from the US to Taiwan are safe to eat, after wrapping up a visit to check beef safety in the US, where a new case of bovine spongiform encephalopathy (BSE, commonly called mad cow disease) was confirmed late last month.
The conclusion came after the seven-member delegation visited nine slaughterhouses, cattle farms, feed producers and laboratories across the US, Council of Agriculture counselor Watson Sung (宋華聰), who headed the group, told a news conference upon its return to Taiwan.
The slaughterhouses visited are responsible for supplying 65 percent of the US beef that is exported to Taiwan, the council said.
Photo: Lin Cheng-kun, Taipei Times
The 23-day trip to gain was aimed at garnering a deeper understanding of US control and quarantine procedures with regards to mad cow disease and Sung said he found the measures taken there to be “very rigorous and efficient.”
However, the delegation found an oversight at a Kansas-based slaughterhouse in its operational procedure for removing cattle tonsils, Sung said, adding that the US authorities took immediate measures to deal with the issue.
Beef produced at that slaughterhouses has been barred from entry to Taiwan, Sung said.
About 10 percent of US beef imports to Taiwan were from that one slaughterhouse.
Although Taiwan does not import cow tonsils from the US, the oversight was against the slaughterhouse’s standard operating procedures that require the removal of potentially risky materials and needed to be improved, the council said.
The delegation also met with officials from the US Department of Agriculture and representatives from the US Consumers Union, Sung said.
Council of Agriculture Minister Chen Bao-ji (陳保基), who was also at the press conference, said a detailed report on the findings of the inspection trip would be released early next month.
On April 24, a dairy cow at a farm in California was confirmed to be infected with mad cow disease by the Department of Agriculture. It was the fourth case of BSE in the US since 2003.
BSE is fatal to cows, while eating tainted meat can cause a fatal brain disease in humans known as variant Creutzfeldt-Jakob disease.
Taiwan routinely sends a delegation to inspect US slaughterhouses each year. This year’s schedule was brought forward as a result of the case of mad cow disease.
Taiwan first banned imports of US beef when a case of mad cow disease was reported in Washington State in December 2003 and then reopened its doors to imports of boneless US beef from cattle under 30 months old in April 2005.
Another ban was imposed in June 2005 when a second US case was reported.
Imports of boneless beef from cattle under 30 months of age were resumed in 2006 and imports of bone-in beef were resumed in late 2009, but Washington has been pressing for wider opening and more recently lobbied for Taiwan to lift its ban on beef containing residue of the leanness-enhancing drug ractopamine.
After the government decided to conditionally lift the ban in early March, the legislature is now reviewing draft amendments to a food safety act related to the beef issue and is expected to vote on three draft amendments to the Act Governing Food Sanitation (食品衛生管理法) before the current session ends in the middle of next month.
Asked whether Taiwan would send another inspection delegation to the US over the ractopamine issue, Chen said a decision would only be made after the legislature made a final decision on amendments to the food act.
FINAL COUNTDOWN: About 50,000 attended a pro-recall rally yesterday, while the KMT and the TPP plan to rally against the recall votes today Democracy activists, together with arts and education representatives, yesterday organized a motorcade, while thousands gathered on Ketagalan Boulevard in Taipei in the evening in support of tomorrow’s recall votes. Recall votes for 24 Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) lawmakers and suspended Hsinchu City mayor Ann Kao (高虹安) are to be held tomorrow, while recall votes for seven other KMT lawmakers are scheduled for Aug. 23. The afternoon motorcade was led by the Spring Breeze Culture and Arts Foundation, the Tyzen Hsiao Foundation and the Friends of Lee Teng-hui Association, and was joined by delegates from the Taiwan Statebuilding Party and the Taiwan Solidarity
Instead of threatening tariffs on Taiwan-made chips, the US should try to reinforce cooperation with Taiwan on semiconductor development to take on challenges from the People’s Republic of China (PRC), a Taiwanese think tank said. The administration of US President Donald Trump has threatened to impose across-the-board import duties of 32 percent on Taiwan-made goods and levy a separate tariff on semiconductors, which Taiwan is hoping to avoid. The Research Institute for Democracy, Society, and Emerging Technology (DSET), a National Science and Technology Council think tank, said that US efforts should focus on containing China’s semiconductor rise rather than impairing Taiwan. “Without
An SOS message in a bottle has been found in Ireland that is believed to have come from the Taiwanese captain of fishing vessel Yong Yu Sing No. 18 (永裕興18號), who has been missing without a trace for over four years, along with nine Indonesian crew members. The vessel, registered to Suao (蘇澳), went missing near Hawaii on Dec. 30, 2020. The ship has since been recovered, but the 10 crew members have never been found. The captain, surnamed Lee (李), is believed to have signed the note with his name. A post appeared on Reddit on Tuesday after a man
President William Lai (賴清德) today condemned an alleged attempt by two Chinese to snatch a letter of congratulations handed to Taiwan’s taekwondo team after they won silver at the Summer World University Games in Essen, Germany, yesterday. A Chinese man and woman reportedly tried to snatch a congratulatory letter to athletes Hung Jiun-yi (洪俊義), Jung Jiun-jie (鍾俊傑) and Huang Cho-cheng (黃卓乘) from the Ministry of Education, and then argued with media employees. “Why are you taking our things?” the media employees asked. “Does that say Chinese Taipei?” the two Chinese reportedly said. Following the incident, Sports Administration Director-General Cheng Shih-chung (鄭世忠) wrote on
RSS