Only one out of the nine examined insect repellents which were approved by the government contained the effective ingredient diethyltoluamide (DEET), the Consumers Foundation said yesterday.
The remaining eight contained what the foundation called “natural” or “non-toxic” ingredients — including essential oils of eucalyptus, lavender, fish geranium, cinnamon, mint, cedarwood and pomelo — which need more research to prove their effectiveness in repelling insects.
The foundation said the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) issued legal permits to 15 insect repellent products, classified as “instructed medicine” containing DEET, adding that currently there are only five of these products in the market, and that consumers should look for the drug license number printed on the packages.
National Taipei University of Education’s Program of Environmental Education and Resources professor Huang Chi-sen (黃基森) said products with natural ingredients need scientific research to back up their claims of effectiveness, but government authorities have not yet established a standardized testing method.
The foundation said a Consumer Protection Committee meeting next week is to determine which government department should monitor insect repellent products.
Huang urged the government to evaluate the effectiveness and safety of more insect repellent ingredients so that consumers would have a greater number of choices and feel confident when selecting such products.
The foundation said consumers can look for insect repellent products with a DEET content of more than 10 percent for better effectiveness, but below 10 percent if used on children and infants under 2 months old. Pregnant women should avoid using products containing DEET, the foundation said.
Considering that most countries issue more than five denominations of banknotes, the central bank has decided to redesign all five denominations, the bank said as it prepares for the first major overhaul of the banknotes in more than 24 years. Central bank Governor Yang Chin-lung (楊金龍) is expected to report to the Legislative Yuan today on the bank’s operations and the redesign’s progress. The bank in a report sent to the legislature ahead of today’s meeting said it had commissioned a survey on the public’s preferences. Survey results showed that NT$100 and NT$1,000 banknotes are the most commonly used, while NT$200 and NT$2,000
The Centers for Disease Control (CDC) yesterday reported the first case of a new COVID-19 subvariant — BA.3.2 — in a 10-year-old Singaporean girl who had a fever upon arrival in Taiwan and tested positive for the disease. The girl left Taiwan on March 20 and the case did not have a direct impact on the local community, it said. The WHO added the BA.3.2 strain to its list of Variants Under Monitoring in December last year, but this was the first imported case of the COVID-19 variant in Taiwan, CDC Deputy Director-General Lin Ming-cheng (林明誠) said. The girl arrived in Taiwan on
South Korea is planning to revise its controversial electronic arrival card, a step Taiwanese officials said prompted them to hold off on planned retaliatory measures, a South Korean media report said yesterday. A Yonhap News Agency report said that the South Korean Ministry of Foreign Affairs is planning to remove the “previous departure place” and “next destination” fields from its e-arrival card system. The plan, reached after interagency consultations, is under review and aims to simplify entry procedures and align the electronic form with the paper version, a South Korean ministry official said. The fields — which appeared only on the electronic form
The Ministry of Foreign Affairs (MOFA) is suspending retaliation measures against South Korea that were set to take effect tomorrow, after Seoul said it is updating its e-arrival system, MOFA said today. The measures were to be a new round of retaliation after Taiwan on March 1 changed South Korea's designation on government-issued alien resident certificates held by South Korean nationals to "South Korea” from the "Republic of Korea," the country’s official name. The move came after months of protests to Seoul over its listing of Taiwan as "China (Taiwan)" in dropdown menus on its new online immigration entry system. MOFA last week
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