Government agencies yesterday vowed to encourage the public to donate their bodies to science in a bid to resolve the perennial shortage of cadavers for medical schools and research centers.
Traditional Chinese religious beliefs hold that the bodies of virtuous individuals should be kept intact after death for the sake of their ancestors and offspring.
DPP Legislator Lai Ching-te (賴清德) held a public hearing yesterday to discuss the government's collection of unidentified dead bodies, including those of alleged vagrants, for research purposes. Officials from the Ministry of the Interior and the Department of Health as well as representatives of human rights groups and medical experts attended the press conference.
Currently, 54 percent of corpses collected for medical research are donated, while 46 percent -- unidentified and unclaimed corpses -- are collected by special departments within medical schools.
The collection of unidentified corpses, however, has been criticized by the Taiwan Association for Human Rights (TAHR), which says that the Statute Governing the Dissection of Corpses (
Under the statute, local police stations or local health departments are entitled to assign bodies that have not been claimed or identified by relatives to medical schools in their districts.
These bodies can be used for anatomy classes and research one month after a death certificate has been issued.
"Even organ donations demand personal approval, so how can the government handle bodies in this way? These bodies are unidentified. The people are not able to express their own desires, but this doesn't mean that anyone else is entitled to make decisions for them," said Wang Hsin-jen (
However, representatives from the Bequeathed Body Center (
Wang Shu-mei (
Lee Lin-feng (
However, Chou Huai-lien (
The Buddhist Compassion Relief Tsu Chi Foundation has promoted body donations and has had than 6,000 people sign up to donate their bodies. The foundation distributes the bodies to various medical schools in Taiwan.
Three Taiwanese airlines have prohibited passengers from packing Bluetooth earbuds and their charger cases in checked luggage. EVA Air and Uni Air said that Bluetooth earbuds and charger cases are categorized as portable electronic devices, which should be switched off if they are placed in checked luggage based on international aviation safety regulations. They must not be in standby or sleep mode. However, as charging would continue when earbuds are placed in the charger cases, which would contravene international aviation regulations, their cases must be carried as hand luggage, they said. Tigerair Taiwan said that earbud charger cases are equipped
UNILATERAL MOVES: Officials have raised concerns that Beijing could try to exert economic control over Kinmen in a key development plan next year The Civil Aviation Administration (CAA) yesterday said that China has so far failed to provide any information about a new airport expected to open next year that is less than 10km from a Taiwanese airport, raising flight safety concerns. Xiamen Xiangan International Airport is only about 3km at its closest point from the islands in Kinmen County — the scene of on-off fighting during the Cold War — and construction work can be seen and heard clearly from the Taiwan side. In a written statement sent to Reuters, the CAA said that airports close to each other need detailed advanced
Tropical Storm Fung-Wong would likely strengthen into a typhoon later today as it continues moving westward across the Pacific before heading in Taiwan’s direction next week, the Central Weather Administration (CWA) said. As of 8am, Fung-Wong was about 2,190km east-southeast of Cape Oluanpi (鵝鑾鼻), Taiwan’s southernmost point, moving westward at 25kph and possibly accelerating to 31kph, CWA data showed. The tropical storm is currently over waters east of the Philippines and still far from Taiwan, CWA forecaster Tseng Chao-cheng (曾昭誠) said, adding that it could likely strengthen into a typhoon later in the day. It is forecast to reach the South China Sea
WEATHER Typhoon forming: CWA A tropical depression is expected to form into a typhoon as early as today, the Central Weather Administration (CWA) said yesterday, adding that the storm’s path remains uncertain. Before the weekend, it would move toward the Philippines, the agency said. Some time around Monday next week, it might reach a turning point, either veering north toward waters east of Taiwan or continuing westward across the Philippines, the CWA said. Meanwhile, the eye of Typhoon Kalmaegi was 1,310km south-southeast of Oluanpi (鵝鑾鼻), Taiwan’s southernmost point, as of 2am yesterday, it said. The storm is forecast to move through central
RSS