On Tuesday, in line with legislative regulations and as requested by legislators, the Taiwan Food and Drug Administration (TFDA) of the Ministry of Health and Welfare ordered that a recent shipment of green tea powder from Japan’s Ibaraki Prefecture be returned or destroyed. The radioactive isotope detected in the sample of the green tea powder, however, was lower than legal levels.
According to regulations, the maximum permitted levels for cesium-134 and cesium-137 combined in food products should be lower than 370 becquerels per kilogram (Bq/kg). From 2011 to this year, 220,497 shipments of food imported from Japan were inspected. Radioactive isotopes were detected in 252 samples, but the levels were still lower than standards in Taiwan. This time, only a level of 3Bq/kg was detected in the shipment from Ibaraki.
The TFDA order is unreasonable. International standards that have been in place for years are more than enough to safeguard public health. Usually, a 50-fold safety factor of WHO standards is sufficient. In 2014, the US Food and Drug Administration said there was no evidence that food products from Japan’s Fukushima Prefecture would be harmful to human beings. In 2015, the US National Academy of Sciences also supported this argument. Papers published in the leading science journal Nature also said that the radioactive levels of food products from Fukushima have returned to levels prior to the nuclear disaster in 2011.
After the Fukushima disaster, the Japanese government set a maximum level of radioactivity in food at 500 Bq/kg for adults. Moreover, even if a person consumes food with a level of radioactivity at 500 Bq/kg every day, the risk of being affected by radiation is lower than undergoing a CT scan. In 2012, Japan set an even stricter level of 100 Bq/kg. As a result of this new regulation, many food products were destroyed and living expenses soared. That was another social disaster.
Bernard Cohen, elected as a member to the US National Academy of Engineering in 2003 for his contributions to the understanding of low-level radiation, said that the harm from 1 millisievert of annual radiation exposure to the human body is similar to the harm caused by 20 grams of alcohol or 40 cups of coffee. In Colorado, the average radiation dose from exposure to natural and artificial background radiation is twice the national average, but the state’s overall rate of cancer is lower than that of the US average.
Due to cosmic rays and natural materials, we are all exposed to radiation daily. The principle of toxicology is that it is the levels which are the key to determining whether a particular substance is toxic or not. According to nuclear physicist and winner of the Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine in 1977, Rosalyn Yalow, some forms of radiation in our lives could be disregarded. We need to be sensible about this.
Instead, we should pay more attention to ways of preserving food and expiration dates. We should also be more careful about heavy metal contamination in seafood, rather than low-level radiation. We should be as mindful of our capacity for understanding as was French philosopher Rene Descartes, who said: “I am indeed amazed when I consider how weak my mind is and how prone to error.” We should be rational and not waste food irrationally and unnecessarily, and I wish Fukushima the best of luck in being self-reliant once more.
Lin Ji-shing is a university professor.
Translated by Emma Liu
As Ukraine leads the global fight for democracy, Taiwan, facing a potential war with China, should draw lessons from Ukraine’s cyberwarfare success. Taiwan has been enhancing its arsenal with advanced weapons from the West in anticipation of a possible full-scale invasion. However, Taipei should also consider Ukraine’s effective digital warfare, notably the “IT [information technology] Army,” a decentralized force instrumental in Kyiv’s cybercampaigns. In February 2022, Russia’s invasion of Ukraine marked the onset of a significant cyberwar, where fears of a “digital Pearl Harbor” in Ukraine were unmet, thanks to robust cyberdefenses backed by Western public and private support. This led
Chinese President Xi Jinping (習近平) is attempting to create an alternative international world order to the US-dominated model. China has benefited hugely from the current order since former Chinese leader Deng Xiaoping (鄧小平) opened up its economy five decades ago. Countries can be categorized as continental or maritime, and to a great degree this determines their optimum foreign policy. China is continental, as is Russia. The US initially followed a continental foreign policy, before it settled on a maritime model. The British empire was so successful because a tiny island kingdom built a formidable naval presence. The US-dominated world order, stabilized by
“You are Taiwanese? Do you speak Taiwanese then?” Growing up in Buenos Aires, my school memories were filled with Spanish, a language that dances off the tongue with the same rhythm and elegance as the tango. However, in my house, a different melody would play — one that alluded to my roots, an artisanal, homemade combination of Taiwanese Hokkien and Mandarin. Although it was a beautiful sound, it was not a tempo I could follow. Put simply, the Taiwanese language was too hard for me to grasp. Eventually, my parents gave into my requests and abandoned that unique fusion of Chinese and
On April 24, US President Joe Biden signed the Protecting Americans from Foreign Adversary Controlled Applications Act. The law, which was overwhelmingly approved by the US Congress, requires the popular video-sharing app TikTok to divest from its parent company, China-based ByteDance, or face a ban in the US. The legislation highlights a dilemma faced by democratic countries, including Taiwan, that pits free speech against national security interests. The US ultimatum is meant to address national security concerns that, according to China’s National Security Law and National Intelligence Law, obligates Chinese individuals and organizations to support national intelligence work, allowing the