NASAL SPRAY BANNED
A nasal spray for treating osteoporosis that contains the drug calcitonin has been ordered off the market as of yesterday because of potential cancer risks, the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) said. The agency said that while it remained unclear whether the medicine actually reduces bone fractures in postmenopausal women, long-term use has been shown to increase the risk of cancer. Calcitonin will still be permitted in injectable form to treat Paget’s disease patients for a short time when they do not respond to alternative treatments. Under the ban, the agency is to cancel licenses for nasal sprays with calcitonin as the active ingredient, and medical institutions, pharmacies and pharmaceutical companies will no longer be allowed to manufacture, import, wholesale, display or sell such medicines. Manufacturers and importers must recall products on the market within two months, and doctors will have to prescribe alternative medicines for patients.
REPORTED CRIMES DECREASE
The number of victims of crimes reported to police dropped by 34 percent between 2008 and last year, according to the latest figures released by the Ministry of the Interior. Among the criminal cases handled by the police, the number of victims decreased from 350,000 in 2008 to about 230,000 last year, which shows good results from a series of educational promotions and prevention measures reinforced by the government in recent years, the ministry said. Over the past five years, the number of crime victims has decreased by 530.5 per 100,000 population, down from 1,535.7 per 100,000 in 2008 to 1,005.2 per 100,000 last year.
CLA APPROVES HIRING RULES
The Council of Labor Affairs (CLA) on Friday approved amendments to regulations that aim to simplify the process of the hiring foreign nationals. The amendments are partly designed to promote international academic, cultural, arts and sports exchanges. Under the new regulations, outstanding foreign artists and athletes who have come to Taiwan on a 30-day visa or entry permit for exchanges between non-profit organizations will no longer be required to apply for an employment visa. Foreign experts or specialists who have been invited by government agencies, universities and research institutions to give lectures or to provide commercial or technical consulting services will also be exempt from applying for a work visa if they obtain a 90-day visitor visa. The council agreed to scrap the work visa requirement for foreign artists, athletes and high-caliber professionals after pressure from school and think tank administrators.
GAMING SUMMIT TO BE HELD
Game developers from Taiwan and abroad are scheduled to meet in Taipei on Thursday and Friday to share their insights into the industry during the Taipei Summit of the Game Developers Conference (GDC). It is the second year Taipei is hosting a local leg of the global industry forum, with this year’s summit organized by UK-based media company UBM TechWeb in association with UBM Asia, along with the Taiwan External Trade Development Council and the Taiwan Game Industry Promotion Alliance. The event is to be held at the Taipei International Convention Center.
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,