Several food poisoning incidents have been reported in recent months, not only raising concerns about the food safety monitoring mechanism, but also about possible racial discrimination.
Last month, 44 people sought medical treatment after they fell ill from eating at a shaved ice store in Kaohsiung. The store was closed down briefly due to sanitation issues found during inspection, and pathogen testing on its food detected four types of pathogenic bacteria: salmonella, Staphylococcus aureus, Escherichia coli and Bacillus cereus.
Earlier this month, 514 people reported feeling sick after eating at a well-known Vietnamese banh mi food stand in Taoyuan. Fourteen health violations were found in an on-site inspection and the stand was shut down until it passed re-inspection.
In response to the first case, the Kaohsiung Department of Health imposed a NT$300,000 (US$9,392) fine on the store, handed over evidence to the Kaohsiung District Prosecutors’ Office and initiated a surprise inspection program on shaved ice shops in the city.
The Food and Drug Administration (FDA) last week said it has launched a food safety inspection campaign, targeting restaurants and stalls serving “foreign cuisine,” and would inspect more than 200 businesses, especially those that sell ready-to-eat foods and salads. It is to take place through November.
While the FDA on Wednesday reported that salmonella and Bacillus cereus were found in the food ingredients from the food stand, the Taoyuan Department of Public Health imposed a NT$540,000 fine on the banh mi stand, initiated an inspection on “Southeast Asian ready-to-eat food” in the city, and is prepared to launch a local food safety and hygiene education campaign in five languages. The Taoyuan District Prosecutors’ Office also launched its own investigation.
The two outbreaks prompted local and central governments to step up food inspections on shaved ice and foreign cuisine, but even with routine random inspections held each year, food poisoning outbreaks were never rare.
According to FDA statistics on food poisoning, 499 cases affecting 4,495 people last year, 498 cases affecting 5,823 people in 2021 and 506 cases affecting 4,920 people in 2020 were reported.
Given that public sector resources are limited, random inspections can only cover a very small proportion of all the food available in the market.
The government should try to shift its effort from increasing inspections to raising public awareness, providing incentive-based mechanisms to motivate food businesses to conform to regulations and guidelines or invest in food safety.
Local governments provide different versions of food safety and hygiene handbooks for small food businesses to follow, along with checklists and record-keeping forms, but there are no incentives for them to actually fill in the forms, especially when many small food businesses are short-staffed.
Moreover, as many food poisoning victims do not seek treatment but instead complain, the government can use the Internet to find sources. In 2013, the Chicago Department of Public Health worked with a technological group to develop an app for identifying tweets from Twitter (now known as X) that are likely related to food poisoning in the city, and it responded by including a link to an online form encouraging them to report the incident. The reports led to inspections at 133 restaurants and 21 of them were shut down for health violations.
Increased food inspections should target specific types of food with higher risk of causing foodborne illness or which have often failed inspections based on scientific evidence, rather than targeting “foreign cuisine” or “Southeast Asian ready-to-eat food” in general, which raises speculations about possible racial discrimination led by the government.
The gutting of Voice of America (VOA) and Radio Free Asia (RFA) by US President Donald Trump’s administration poses a serious threat to the global voice of freedom, particularly for those living under authoritarian regimes such as China. The US — hailed as the model of liberal democracy — has the moral responsibility to uphold the values it champions. In undermining these institutions, the US risks diminishing its “soft power,” a pivotal pillar of its global influence. VOA Tibetan and RFA Tibetan played an enormous role in promoting the strong image of the US in and outside Tibet. On VOA Tibetan,
Sung Chien-liang (宋建樑), the leader of the Chinese Nationalist Party’s (KMT) efforts to recall Democratic Progressive Party (DPP) Legislator Lee Kun-cheng (李坤城), caused a national outrage and drew diplomatic condemnation on Tuesday after he arrived at the New Taipei City District Prosecutors’ Office dressed in a Nazi uniform. Sung performed a Nazi salute and carried a copy of Adolf Hitler’s Mein Kampf as he arrived to be questioned over allegations of signature forgery in the recall petition. The KMT’s response to the incident has shown a striking lack of contrition and decency. Rather than apologizing and distancing itself from Sung’s actions,
US President Trump weighed into the state of America’s semiconductor manufacturing when he declared, “They [Taiwan] stole it from us. They took it from us, and I don’t blame them. I give them credit.” At a prior White House event President Trump hosted TSMC chairman C.C. Wei (魏哲家), head of the world’s largest and most advanced chip manufacturer, to announce a commitment to invest US$100 billion in America. The president then shifted his previously critical rhetoric on Taiwan and put off tariffs on its chips. Now we learn that the Trump Administration is conducting a “trade investigation” on semiconductors which
By now, most of Taiwan has heard Taipei Mayor Chiang Wan-an’s (蔣萬安) threats to initiate a vote of no confidence against the Cabinet. His rationale is that the Democratic Progressive Party (DPP)-led government’s investigation into alleged signature forgery in the Chinese Nationalist Party’s (KMT) recall campaign constitutes “political persecution.” I sincerely hope he goes through with it. The opposition currently holds a majority in the Legislative Yuan, so the initiation of a no-confidence motion and its passage should be entirely within reach. If Chiang truly believes that the government is overreaching, abusing its power and targeting political opponents — then
RSS