The Food and Drug Administration (FDA) on Wednesday launched a Web site listing dubious food and dietary supplements sold via e-commerce or social media platforms registered overseas, urging people to be cautious as it cannot regulate or fine these sites.
The Web site — www.fda.gov.tw/TC/news.aspx?cid=5085 — is designed to expose problematic products, the agency said.
As of Wednesday, 17 problematic products found between January and April were listed on the Web site, including several tea and coffee products touting therapeutic or fat-burning effects, an egg product that claims to enlarge the breasts, and dietary supplements and beauty products that could rejuvenate the eyes or skin.
Exaggerated or improper phrases used in the advertisements included “warms up and protects the kidneys and cures colds” for a foot bath powder, “eliminates edema, benefits the bladder, and reduces blood sugar, blood pressure and blood lipid” for a type of tea product, and “stabilizes plasma membranes of the eye lens and increases antioxidant activity” for a dietary supplement.
Food Safety Division official Hsu Chao-kai (許朝凱) said that the advertisements on these Web sites often lack information, such as the company address and owner.
Moreover, Web site administrators can easily take down a site whenever a consumer dispute occurs, which makes them similar to Internet scams, Hsu said.
People can maintain a balanced diet by eating right and should not fall prey to food or dietary supplements touting magical or therapeutic effects, he said.
If they feel ill, they should seek medical attention at accredited clinics or hospitals, he added.
The agency urged consumers to carefully read package labels when purchasing food, dietary supplements, drugs, and beauty and cosmetic products, and seek professional advice when they have questions about a product’s claims.
Former Czech Republic-based Taiwanese researcher Cheng Yu-chin (鄭宇欽) has been sentenced to seven years in prison on espionage-related charges, China’s Ministry of State Security announced yesterday. China said Cheng was a spy for Taiwan who “masqueraded as a professor” and that he was previously an assistant to former Cabinet secretary-general Cho Jung-tai (卓榮泰). President-elect William Lai (賴清德) on Wednesday last week announced Cho would be his premier when Lai is inaugurated next month. Today is China’s “National Security Education Day.” The Chinese ministry yesterday released a video online showing arrests over the past 10 years of people alleged to be
THE HAWAII FACTOR: While a 1965 opinion said an attack on Hawaii would not trigger Article 5, the text of the treaty suggests the state is covered, the report says NATO could be drawn into a conflict in the Taiwan Strait if Chinese forces attacked the US mainland or Hawaii, a NATO Defense College report published on Monday says. The report, written by James Lee, an assistant research fellow at Academia Sinica’s Institute of European and American Studies, states that under certain conditions a Taiwan contingency could trigger Article 5 of NATO, under which an attack against any member of the alliance is considered an attack against all members, necessitating a response. Article 6 of the North Atlantic Treaty specifies that an armed attack in the territory of any member in Europe,
LIKE FAMILY: People now treat dogs and cats as family members. They receive the same medical treatments and tests as humans do, a veterinary association official said The number of pet dogs and cats in Taiwan has officially outnumbered the number of human newborns last year, data from the Ministry of Agriculture’s pet registration information system showed. As of last year, Taiwan had 94,544 registered pet dogs and 137,652 pet cats, the data showed. By contrast, 135,571 babies were born last year. Demand for medical care for pet animals has also risen. As of Feb. 29, there were 5,773 veterinarians in Taiwan, 3,993 of whom were for pet animals, statistics from the Animal and Plant Health Inspection Agency showed. In 2022, the nation had 3,077 pediatricians. As of last
XINJIANG: Officials are conducting a report into amending an existing law or to enact a special law to prohibit goods using forced labor Taiwan is mulling an amendment prohibiting the importation of goods using forced labor, similar to the Uyghur Forced Labor Prevention Act (UFLPA) passed by the US Congress in 2021 that imposed limits on goods produced using forced labor in China’s Xinjiang region. A government official who wished to remain anonymous said yesterday that as the US customs law explicitly prohibits the importation of goods made using forced labor, in 2021 it passed the specialized UFLPA to limit the importation of cotton and other goods from China’s Xinjiang Uyghur region. Taiwan does not have the legal basis to prohibit the importation of goods