The food and medicine scare involving magnesium carbonate intended for industrial use continued to snowball yesterday as the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) found that two pharmaceutical companies which passed the government’s new manufacturing standards allegedly used the substance in the manufacture of stomach medicine.
FDA Deputy Director-General Wu Hsiu-ying (吳秀英) said that following the discovery that two pharmaceutical firms had manufactured stomach powder products with magnesium carbonate meant for industrial use purchased from Taichung-based Yi Hsing Trading Co (誼興貿易), the administration had begun looking into the 103 firms that passed the international PIC/S GMP standards (Pharmaceutical Inspection Convention and Pharmaceutical Inspection Cooperation Scheme).
“When asked whether their products contained magnesium carbonate or if they had acquired the chemical from Yi Hsing’s upstream supplier, Greater Tainan’s Yuncheng Chemical Industrial Co (允成化工), New Taipei City’s Johnson Chemical Pharmaceutical Works Co (強生化學製藥) and Taichung’s Weidar Chemical and Pharmaceutical Co (衛達化學製藥) said they had purchased the substance from Yuncheng,” Wu told a news conference in Taipei yesterday.
“Other firms that have used magnesium carbonate in their products imported the chemical legally from Germany or Japan,” Wu said.
Wu said Johnson allegedly began using magnesium carbonate intended for industrial use in its “Saporo A Granule” (爽保樂安腸胃藥) in 2006, while Weidar was believed to have started using the substance in its “Lavezol Capsules” (樂胃如膠囊) in 2008.
The FDA has yet to obtain figures for the amount of the two potentially tainted products that are still in circulation, but it has ordered a preventive recall of the two products, Wu added.
On Wednesday, reports emerged that Jen Chang Sheng Chemical and Pharmaceutical Co (正長生化學製藥) and Mu Tsu Pharmaceutical Chemical Co (木村製藥) had acquired the chemical from Yi Hsing to use in the manufacture of stomach medicine.
Taichung’s health bureau also found on the same day that Jen Sheng Pharmaceutical Co (人生製藥) had allegedly procured 425kg of non-edible calcium carbonate from Yi Hsing between 2008 and 2011.
Jen Sheng allegedly used the substance in 4,800 boxes of “Huacorsun” (化咳散, cough medicine) for Top International Biotect Ltd (牛耳生技) and 3,400 bottles of “Weidalon Powder” (胃達樂散) for Cheng Shing Tai Biopharmaceutical Co (鄭杏泰生物科技).
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
POLICE INVESTIGATING: A man said he quit his job as a nurse at Taipei Tzu Chi Hospital as he had been ‘disgusted’ by the behavior of his colleagues A man yesterday morning wrote online that he had witnessed nurses taking photographs and touching anesthetized patients inappropriately in Taipei Tzu Chi Hospital’s operating theaters. The man surnamed Huang (黃) wrote on the Professional Technology Temple bulletin board that during his six-month stint as a nurse at the hospital, he had seen nurses taking pictures of patients, including of their private parts, after they were anesthetized. Some nurses had also touched patients inappropriately and children were among those photographed, he said. Huang said this “disgusted” him “so much” that “he felt the need to reveal these unethical acts in the operating theater
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