The Consumers’ Foundation yesterday urged the Ministry of Health and Welfare to establish a specialized agency and laboratory for examining beef imports.
The ministry on Friday last week announced the immediate resumption of Canadian beef imports, saying that assessments were made by reviewing reports and visiting Canada for inspections, and the agency had come to believe that risks of bovine spongiform encephalopathy (BSE), also known as mad cow disease, are low in Canadian beef imports.
The foundation yesterday said consumers are likely to be suspicious over the sudden announcement, as many serious food safety issues have been discovered in recent years.
While the ministry said it would implement the “three management and five checkpoint” measures, which comprise regular inspections of meat products at processing factories, borders and in markets, as well as five different safety checks at borders, the examinations might not be enough, the foundation said.
Foundation chairman Alan Lu (陸雲) said prion protein is not tested in the five checks although it is the main causative agent of BSE and Creutzfeldt-Jakob disease, the human form of mad cow disease.
“Some countries have already established specialized agencies and laboratories in charge of assessing risks and performing examinations on beef products,” Lu said
The foundation urged the government to also establish an agency to detect contaminated meat products and establish prevention measures.
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
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