Democratic Progressive Party (DPP) lawmakers and lawyer Wellington Koo (顧立雄) yesterday accused the government of failing to supervise the food industry and urged the government to act more aggressively to ensure companies refund affected consumers.
The Ministry of Health and Welfare on Thursday asked all edible oil businesses to provide an affidavit by Thursday next week guaranteeing the raw materials and additives on their labels were correctly stated.
The authority also announced that Friday next week will be “D-Day” for an extended edible oil inspection to make sure that “all the edible oil products on the market are free from mislabeling or fraudulent claims,” Minister of Health and Welfare Chiu Wen-ta (邱文達) said.
Photo: Fang Pin-chao, Taipei Times
DPP Legislator Lin Shu-fen (林淑芬) called the inspection into question, saying the core idea of “D-Day” is businesses’ self-discipline, “which is exactly what has been proven as lacking by the recent food safety scandals.”
Lin, together with three other DPP lawmakers and Koo, previously a lawyer for former president Chen Shui-bian (陳水扁) and now seeking a party nomination for Taipei mayor, called for further revisions to the amended Act Governing Food Sanitation (食品衛生管理法) that took effect in June.
The group proposed to strengthen the protection for whistle-blowers, by explicitly stipulating how informants are to be rewarded, shifting the burden of proof of food safety from consumers to food businesses in relation to compensation claims stipulated in Article 56, and allowing local governments to file public-interest litigations against regulation-violating businesses for compensation.
“Extending the protection for whistle-blowing from employees to anyone in the processing chain, such as people in downstream businesses, can boost insiders’ incentive to inform,” Koo said.
Koo also proposed raising the maximum amount of compensation from the current NT$20,000 to NT$30,000 per person.
DPP Legislator Tien Chiu-chin (田秋堇) emphasized the need of a legally based food safety fund, “without which the fines seized by the government would go into state coffers and not be used for consumer compensation or whistle-blowing rewards.”
Tien said the ministry had spurned the proposal to set up such a fund in the recent legislative plenary session, but relented recently after yet another food scandal.
Another proposal that had been rejected by the executive authority was one to increase the maximum sentence for those who sold illegally adulterated products from the current three years to five years in prison, Liu said.
“President Ma has recently advised that the penalties will be raised [to more than three years]. We hope that the related authorities do not act against Ma’s instructions this time,” DPP Legislator Liu Chien-kuo (劉建國) said.
Meanwhile, Lin said yesterday that Flavor Full Food Inc’s supervisor and research and development executive director was a member on the ministry-commissioned oil review committee.
Lin said that Lee Min-Hsiung (李敏雄), a former professor of agricultural chemistry at National Taiwan University, was quoted as suggesting testing only on high-priced oils, such as olive oil, sesame oil and peanut oil, “as they are more likely to be adulterated.”
Later yesterday, the Food and Drug Administration said Lee did not join the review meeting examining the research project’s results and was invited as an expert, adding his suggestion to test only high-priced oils was not adopted.
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
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
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,