More than 70 percent of the public are opposed to easing a ban on imports of beef containing ractopamine, People First Party legislative caucus whip Thomas Lee (李桐豪) said yesterday, citing an opinion poll, and he accused the government of lying in its arguments for easing the ban.
As the majority of the public are against easing the ban, “the Legislative Yuan, as a representative of public opinion, should respect that opinion,” Lee said.
Citing an opinion poll conducted on Monday and Tuesday, with more than 1,000 valid samples collected from citizens over 20 years of age, Lee said that as many as 72.5 percent of respondents are against lifting the ban.
“The UN’s Codex Alimentarius Commission is meeting next month and is probably not going to set a residual allowance level for ractopamine, which means ractopamine would not be allowed at all in food,” Lee said. “We should follow the Codex’s standards.”
He criticized the Chinese Nationalist Party’s (KMT) proposals to amend the Act Governing Food Sanitation (食品衛生管理法) to set a maximum allowable level for racotopamine residues in food, supporting the Democratic Progressive Party’s (DPP) “zero tolerance” revision proposals.
“Ractopamine should not be present at all, that’s the real Codex standard,” he said.
He also panned the government for saying that the EU had lost a lawsuit for banning ractopamine.
“The dispute between the EU and the US was about the use of estradinol, progesterone, testosterone, melengesterol acetate and zeranol. It did not include ractopamine at all,” Lee said. “The government should not intentionally spread such false information.”
He was referring to remarks by KMT spokesman Yin Wei (殷瑋) earlier this month on a lawsuit between the EU and the US on additives in food.
Commenting on President Ma Ying-jeou’s (馬英九) remarks that lifting the ban is an important step toward talks on trade agreements, including the Trade and Investment Framework Agreement, free-trade agreements and the Trans-Pacific Partnership agreement, Lee said that Taiwan had fallen behind and it was too late now to talk about such trade liberalization.
“The best way for the development of Taiwan is to adjust industrial structures,” he said.
Lee called on the government and the KMT not to try to force through amendments in the legislature, as “this is only going to create more disputes between different political camps.”
Meanwhile, a separate poll yesterday found that most people were willing to put the US beef controversy to a referendum, despite differing opinions on whether to adopt a pending international standard on ractopamine residues.
The survey, conducted on Monday and Tuesday by Taiwan Indication Survey Research (TISR), showed 60.9 percent of respondents, including more than half of pan-blue supporters, agreed to put the ractopamine residues issue to a referendum.
TISR general manager Tai Li-an (戴立安) said the poll showed that the public remained divided on the amount of allowable ractopamine residues, with 46.2 percent saying they agree with setting maximum residue levels in accordance with the final decision of the UN Codex Alimentarius Commission next month, while 40 percent disagreed.
The poll also showed President Ma Ying-jeou’s (馬英九) approval rating dipping to 22.4 percent, and only 29.2 percent of respondents deemed Ma as “credible.”
More than half — 53.4 percent — of those polled said they did not trust Ma as a leader, according to the survey.
The DPP was recognized by 37.9 percent of respondents, including 20 percent of pan-blue supporters, as the political party with the best performance in safeguarding public interests amid the US beef controversy.
The KMT finished a distant second at 14.8 percent, the poll showed.
The poll collected 1,009 samples and had a margin of error of 3.1 percentage points.
REACHING OUT: President Tsai expressed condolences to the deceased man’s family and wished a speedy recovery to those who were wounded in the shooting The Formosan Association for Public Affairs (FAPA) on Monday called on the US to label organizations associated with the suspect in the Irvine Taiwanese Presbyterian Church shooting as domestic terrorists, following accusations that he was a member of a group backing unification with ties to the Chinese government. David Wenwei Chou (周文偉), 68, was arrested on Sunday and is being held in lieu of US$1 million bail at the Orange County Intake Release Center over a mass shooting at the California church that left one dead and five wounded. Local police suspect the shooting was politically motivated after they found notes in
NO CONSENSUS YET: Local governments and the CECC have agreed to change the ‘3+4’ self-isolation policy, but are still mulling what to replace it with The Central Epidemic Command Center (CECC) and local governments have agreed to ease restrictions on close contacts of COVID-19 cases, although the details are still being discussed, the center said yesterday. The discussions follow Premier Su Tseng-chang (蘇貞昌) on Saturday approving a proposal to shorten the “3+4” policy — three days of home isolation followed by four days of self-disease prevention — for close contacts who have received booster doses. “We did not reach a consensus on how to revise the current restrictions, but we all agreed that the administrative burden must be reduced and the intensity of restrictions must be eased,
OPPOSING CHINESE ‘HOSTILITY’: The bill orders the state secretary to create a plan to regain observer status for Taiwan, saying Taipei is a model contributor to world health US President Joe Biden on Friday signed a bill into law to help Taiwan regain observer status at the World Health Assembly (WHA), demonstrating Washington’s support for Taiwan’s international participation. Friday was the deadline for Biden to sign the bill (S.812), which directs “the Secretary of State to develop a strategy to regain observer status for Taiwan in the World Health Organization (WHO), and for other purposes.” The 75th WHA, the decisionmaking body of the WHO, is scheduled to meet in Geneva, Switzerland, from Sunday next week to May 28. The bill, introduced by US Senator Bob Menendez, chairman of the US Senate
LIVING WITH COVID-19: Close contacts with a booster shot would no longer follow the ‘3+4’ policy, instead practicing ‘0+7,’ or self-disease prevention for seven days Close contacts of COVID-19 cases who have received a booster shot no longer need to isolate at home, but should practice seven days of “self-disease prevention,” effective today, the Central Epidemic Command Center (CECC) said yesterday. Minister of Health and Welfare Chen Shih-chung (陳時中), who heads the center, said that starting at 12am today, close contacts — people living in the same household — of those confirmed to be infected with COVID-19 are exempt from home isolation if they have received a booster shot of a COVID-19 vaccine. Data from other countries show that people who have received a booster shot are
RSS