The Consumers’ Foundation yesterday urged the government to launch an investigation into potential risks of the human papillomavirus (HPV) vaccine, which the foundation said have led to several cases of severe side effects and even death overseas.
“The Health Promotion Administration and some local governments offer free HPV vaccines to female junior-high school students, but a large number of side effects following HPV vaccinations have been reported in the US, Japan and the UK, which have had 8,000, 1,926 and 1,340 cases respectively,” the foundation said.
It said that Taiwan Immunization Vision and Strategy recommends that teenage girls get vaccinated when they are 13 to achieve maximum protection, and it predicts that the efficacy of the three-dose regime — which costs about NT$4,000 per dose — could last for as long as two decades.
However, the foundation cited statistics showing that 1,926 out of 3.42 million Japanese who completed the vaccination since the Japanese government promoted a government-funded HPV vaccination program in December 2012 had suffered from side effects.
“Among them, 101 experienced severe side effects and one died,” the foundation said, adding that the Japanese government has initiated an investigation into the incidents.
In the UK, while most of the HPV vaccine recipients exhibited only mild symptoms following the injections, such as fever, nausea, dizziness and muscle weakness, there are reports that 20 young women experienced blurred vision, four suffered from spasms, one developed facial paralysis and one suffered paralysis on the right side of her body, the foundation said.
US authorities are yet to rule out the HPV vaccination as being responsible for the deaths of 10 young girls, it added.
In response, HPA Cancer Prevention and Control Division Director Wu Chien-yuan (吳建遠) said hospitals and clinics have been instructed to inform vaccine recipients of all the potential side effects from the HPV vaccine, adding that only 100 of the more-than 16,000 Taiwanese who have been vaccinated so far had reported side effects.
Starlux Airlines, Taiwan’s newest international carrier, has announced it would apply to join the Oneworld global airline alliance before the end of next year. In an investor conference on Monday, Starlux Airlines chief executive officer Glenn Chai (翟健華) said joining the alliance would help it access Taiwan. Chai said that if accepted, Starlux would work with other airlines in the alliance on flight schedules, passenger transits and frequent flyer programs. The Oneworld alliance has 13 members, including American Airlines, British Airways, Cathay Pacific and Qantas, and serves more than 900 destinations in 170 territories. Joining Oneworld would also help boost
A new tropical storm formed late yesterday near Guam and is to approach closest to Taiwan on Thursday, the Central Weather Administration (CWA) said. Tropical Storm Pulasan became the 14th named storm of the year at 9:25pm yesterday, the agency said. As of 8am today, it was near Guam traveling northwest at 21kph, it said. The storm’s structure is relatively loose and conditions for strengthening are limited, WeatherRisk analyst Wu Sheng-yu (吳聖宇) said on Facebook. Its path is likely to be similar to Typhoon Bebinca, which passed north of Taiwan over Japan’s Ryukyu Islands and made landfall in Shanghai this morning, he said. However, it
Taiwan's Gold Apollo Co (金阿波羅通信) said today that the pagers used in detonations in Lebanon the day before were not made by it, but by a company called BAC which has a license to use its brand. At least nine people were killed and nearly 3,000 wounded when pagers used by Hezbollah members detonated simultaneously across Lebanon yesterday. Images of destroyed pagers analyzed by Reuters showed a format and stickers on the back that were consistent with pagers made by Gold Apollo. A senior Lebanese security source told Reuters that Hezbollah had ordered 5,000 pagers from Taiwan-based Gold Apollo. "The product was not
COLD FACTS: ‘Snow skin’ mooncakes, made with a glutinous rice skin and kept at a low temperature, have relatively few calories compared with other mooncakes Traditional mooncakes are a typical treat for many Taiwanese in the lead-up to the Mid-Autumn Festival, but a Taipei-based dietitian has urged people not to eat more than one per day and not to have them every day due to their high fat and calorie content. As mooncakes contain a lot of oil and sugar, they can have negative health effects on older people and those with diabetes, said Lai Yu-han (賴俞含), a dietitian at Taipei Hospital of the Ministry of Health and Welfare. “The maximum you can have is one mooncake a day, and do not eat them every day,” Lai