Taiwan Women’s Link and a Democratic Progressive Party (DPP) lawmaker yesterday urged the Ministry of Health and Welfare (MOHW) not to appeal an administrative court ruling ordering compensation for a teenage girl who apparently had an adverse reaction after being vaccinated for human papillomavirus (HPV).
The Taipei High Administrative Court on Thursday last week ruled that the ministry pay the junior-high-school student, identified only as “Bella,” between NT$20,000 and NT$1.2 million (US$648 and US$38,900).
Bella developed symptoms of juvenile idiopathic arthritis about a week after she received a second dose of the HPV vaccine at her school on Sept. 30, 2016, but the Centers for Disease Control’s (CDC) review committee in 2017 denied her application for vaccination victim relief.
Photo: Lin Hui-chin, Taipei Times
Taiwan Women’s Link chairperson Huang Sue-ying (黃淑英) and DPP Legislator Lin Shu-fen (林淑芬) held a news conference in Taipei, attended by Bella’s father to urge the ministry not to appeal the ruling.
They also asked people to stop describing Bella’s illness as psychogenic.
Showing reporters two papers with human figures and dense wording that recorded the dates and body parts where Bella felt arthritis pain, Bella’s father sobbed as he said that his daughter had been healthy and a member of her school’s track and field team before she was vaccinated.
Now she sometimes takes up to nine oral steroids a day as well as painkillers before tests or attending important events, he said.
Although HPV vaccines are being administered in many nations and generally appear safe for most people, the possibility of adverse reactions in rare cases cannot be ruled out, Huang said.
There have been a few cases of people suffering adverse reactions in the US and receiving compensation, so the government’s vaccination victim relief mechanism should focus on protecting the public, not defending pharmaceutical companies, she said.
The CDC’s review committee said Bella’s symptoms were not caused by the vaccine, but it had not been able to provide clear evidence to back his claim, even though it had hired four lawyers to ask Bella’s family to provide evidence of such a link, Lin said.
Bella’s father said that the doctor who examined his daughter after she developed arthritis issued a certificate stating that she showed “suspected vaccine-induced symptoms,” but the ministry chose to believe the review committee, which did not treat his daughter.
CDC physician Lin Yung-ching (林詠青) told the news conference that the ministry would review suggestions from specialists on the review committee and discuss Bella’s case with the Health Promotion Administration before it decides whether to file an appeal.
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