As more tea store chains became embroiled in a pesticide scare, food safety specialists yesterday urged the public to refrain from drinking tea made from a first infusion and demanded the government step up its monitoring of pesticide use in edible products.
“There are about 70 types of environmental hormones. Among them, about 40, including dichloro-diphenyl-trichloroethane [DDT], dioxin-like polychlorinated biphenyls and plasticizers, can impede proper hormone function; increase the risk of cancer and birth defects; and cause the feminization of mammals, fish and birds,” Academia Sinica vice president Chen Chien-jen (陳建仁) told a forum on battling cancer in Taipei.
Chen said that long-term consumption of beverages made from pesticide-laced tea leaves could increase the risk of cancers. He urged the government to improve monitoring of tea farmers’ use of pesticides, and called on consumers to opt only for stores whose ingredients are proven by inspections to be free of pesticide residue.
Research has associated exposure to environmental hormones with higher risks of breast, ovarian, prostate, testicular and thyroid cancers, Chen said.
“It is worth noting that plasticizers can make one more prone to developing breast cancer, so the public is advised to avoid heating foods covered with plastic wrap in a microwave oven, regularly replace plastic containers with new ones and only put containers made from transparent glass or ceramics in a microwave,” he said.
Tan Tun-tzu (譚敦慈), widow of toxicology expert Lin Chieh-liang (林杰樑), said she conducted an experiment in which dried rose and chrysanthemum buds were first washed with cold running water for two minutes before being immersed in boiling water for three to five minutes.
“The result was that more than 90 percent of the pesticide residue contained in the buds was washed away,” Tan said.
People should not drink tea made from a first infusion to avoid consuming high levels of pesticide residue and stay away from tea leaves contaminated with DDT, as it is not water-soluble and is therefore harder to wash away, she said.
DDT was the insecticide found last month in the rose tea ingredients used by tea chain Stornaway (英國藍), a discovery that set off a nationwide pesticide scare that has widened to several other chains.
An essay competition jointly organized by a local writing society and a publisher affiliated with the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) might have contravened the Act Governing Relations Between the People of the Taiwan Area and the Mainland Area (臺灣地區與大陸地區人民關係條例), the Mainland Affairs Council (MAC) said on Thursday. “In this case, the partner organization is clearly an agency under the CCP’s Fujian Provincial Committee,” MAC Deputy Minister and spokesperson Liang Wen-chieh (梁文傑) said at a news briefing in Taipei. “It also involves bringing Taiwanese students to China with all-expenses-paid arrangements to attend award ceremonies and camps,” Liang said. Those two “characteristics” are typically sufficient
A magnitude 5.9 earthquake that struck about 33km off the coast of Hualien City was the "main shock" in a series of quakes in the area, with aftershocks expected over the next three days, the Central Weather Administration (CWA) said yesterday. Prior to the magnitude 5.9 quake shaking most of Taiwan at 6:53pm yesterday, six other earthquakes stronger than a magnitude of 4, starting with a magnitude 5.5 quake at 6:09pm, occurred in the area. CWA Seismological Center Director Wu Chien-fu (吳健富) confirmed that the quakes were all part of the same series and that the magnitude 5.5 temblor was
The brilliant blue waters, thick foliage and bucolic atmosphere on this seemingly idyllic archipelago deep in the Pacific Ocean belie the key role it now plays in a titanic geopolitical struggle. Palau is again on the front line as China, and the US and its allies prepare their forces in an intensifying contest for control over the Asia-Pacific region. The democratic nation of just 17,000 people hosts US-controlled airstrips and soon-to-be-completed radar installations that the US military describes as “critical” to monitoring vast swathes of water and airspace. It is also a key piece of the second island chain, a string of
The Central Weather Administration has issued a heat alert for southeastern Taiwan, warning of temperatures as high as 36°C today, while alerting some coastal areas of strong winds later in the day. Kaohsiung’s Neimen District (內門) and Pingtung County’s Neipu Township (內埔) are under an orange heat alert, which warns of temperatures as high as 36°C for three consecutive days, the CWA said, citing southwest winds. The heat would also extend to Tainan’s Nansi (楠西) and Yujing (玉井) districts, as well as Pingtung’s Gaoshu (高樹), Yanpu (鹽埔) and Majia (瑪家) townships, it said, forecasting highs of up to 36°C in those areas
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