The Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) legislative caucus yesterday panned Democratic Progressive Party (DPP) presidential candidate Tsai Ing-wen (蔡英文) for stating that Taiwan should adopt Japan and South Korea’s standards for ractopamine in imported pork as a reference when asked in Sunday’s televised presidential debate about the possibility of opening the market to pork from the US with the leanness-enhancing additive.
When asked on Sunday whether she would agree to the US’ condition that imported pork containing ractopamine be allowed as a prerequisite for Taiwan to join the Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP), Tsai said she would use Japan’s and South Korea’s legal limits on the amount of the leanness-enhancing feed additive as a reference, as the two countries have eating habits similar to that of Taiwan, while prohibiting the use of the additive in domestically produced pork products for product differentiation.
When pressed by reporters in a post-debate news conference on whether what she said during the debate indicates that the ban on US pork containing ractopamine would be lifted under certain conditions, Tsai said it was too early to say.
KMT caucus deputy whip Alicia Wang (王育敏) yesterday said the DPP had objected to imports of US beef, demanding “zero detected ractopamine.”
“Now the DPP caucus has fallen asleep and no one dares to say anything against it,” she said.
“Given that Taiwanese consume more pork products than beef, following Japan’s and South Korea’s standards would result in excessive ractopamine consumption, which would seriously damage public health. Therefore, we cannot yield on this matter,” Wang said.
“On July 25, 2012, the DPP caucus motioned an attached resolution to legislation allowing imports of US beef calling for different measures to be taken for imported beef and imported pork. Tsai’s proposal to follow Japan’s and South Korea’s standards would violate the resolution,” she added.
Council of Agriculture Minister Chen Bao-ji (陳保基) said that producing pork with the leanness-enhancing feed additive can lower costs, meaning that allowing imports of pork with ractopamine, if sold at a dumping price, would hurt domestic pig farmers.
“About 70 percent of the world’s pig-farming industries refuse to use ractopamine. Why would Taiwan need to accept pork products containing additives?” he asked, adding that Taiwan imports ractopamine-free pork from Denmark, the Netherlands and the US.
In response, the DPP said that it is “too early to decide on the pork imports issue, which might come up during trade negotiations.”
“The DPP believes that international standards and other nations’ experiences need to be taken into consideration when dealing with the inspection, import and export of agricultural products,” it said.
“At the same time, risk evaluation, management and communication would be rigorously performed and domestic farmers’ interests protected,” it added.
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
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,
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