The Consumers’ Foundation yesterday demanded that the government include prion tests in its inspection of US beef imports to detect any possible bovine spongiform encephalopathy (BSE) contamination.
The foundation and other groups will submit a joint proposal to the Department of Health, foundation chairman Hsieh Tien-jen (謝天仁) said.
BSE, or mad cow disease, is a fatal brain degenerating disease in cattle. The human form is known as variant Creutzfeldt-Jakob disease. Scientists believe that it may be transmitted to human beings who eat certain matter from infected animals.
The infectious agent in BSE is believed to be a specific type of misfolded protein called a prion. Those prion proteins carry the disease in transmission between individuals and cause deterioration of the brain.
Hsieh said the risk of BSE contamination in US beef imports has increased because imports of bone-in beef from cattle younger than 30 months are now allowed under the Taiwan-US beef trade protocol signed Oct. 22.
The two sides are expected to review — in six months — the possibility of further opening Taiwan’s market to boneless or bone-in beef from older cattle, which would further raise the risk of BSE contamination, he said.
The foundation is promoting a referendum drive to reject high-risk beef products from the US and Hsieh said the foundation and its allies would reach out to other civic organizations with the aim of collecting 1 million signatures in the second phase of the campaign.
The campaign will be launched simultaneously around the nation, and there are no plans to work with political parties or groups to push referendum proposal, he said.
The proposed referendum would ask voters to veto the government’s decision to open the market to US bone-in beef, ground beef, bovine offal and spinal cords, and demand that the government renegotiate the beef protocol with the US.
There are 77 incidents of Taiwanese travelers going missing in China between January last year and last month, the Straits Exchange Foundation (SEF) said. More than 40 remain unreachable, SEF Secretary-General Luo Wen-jia (羅文嘉) said on Friday. Most of the reachable people in the more than 30 other incidents were allegedly involved in fraud, while some had disappeared for personal reasons, Luo said. One of these people is Kuo Yu-hsuan (郭宇軒), a 22-year-old Taiwanese man from Kaohsiung who went missing while visiting China in August. China’s Taiwan Affairs Office last month said in a news statement that he was under investigation
An aviation jacket patch showing a Formosan black bear punching Winnie the Pooh has become popular overseas, including at an aviation festival held by the Japan Air Self-Defense Force at the Ashiya Airbase yesterday. The patch was designed last year by Taiwanese designer Hsu Fu-yu (徐福佑), who said that it was inspired by Taiwan’s countermeasures against frequent Chinese military aircraft incursions. The badge shows a Formosan black bear holding a Republic of China flag as it punches Winnie the Pooh — a reference to Chinese President Xi Jinping (習近平) — who is dressed in red and is holding a honey pot with
Celebrations marking Double Ten National Day are to begin in Taipei today before culminating in a fireworks display in Yunlin County on the night of Thursday next week. To start the celebrations, a concert is to be held at the Taipei Dome at 4pm today, featuring a lineup of award-winning singers, including Jody Chiang (江蕙), Samingad (紀曉君) and Huang Fei (黃妃), Taipei tourism bureau official Chueh Yu-ling (闕玉玲) told a news conference yesterday. School choirs, including the Pqwasan na Taoshan Choir and Hngzyang na Matui & Nahuy Children’s Choir, and the Ministry of National Defense Symphony Orchestra, flag presentation unit and choirs,
China is attempting to subsume Taiwanese culture under Chinese culture by promulgating legislation on preserving documents on ties between the Minnan region and Taiwan, a Taiwanese academic said yesterday. China on Tuesday enforced the Fujian Province Minnan and Taiwan Document Protection Act to counter Taiwanese cultural independence with historical evidence that would root out misleading claims, Chinese-language media outlet Straits Today reported yesterday. The act is “China’s first ad hoc local regulations in the cultural field that involve Taiwan and is a concrete step toward implementing the integrated development demonstration zone,” Fujian Provincial Archives deputy director Ma Jun-fan (馬俊凡) said. The documents
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