A study showed that 10.16 percent of people in Taiwan have food allergies, the Ministry of Health and Welfare said, with common sources of allergens being seafood and mangoes.
The ministry has conducted three large-scale studies on allergic reactions to food in the past decade, starting with the first in 2005 targeting 30,280 people across 35 organizations and schools.
The 2005 study showed that 18.6 percent of the population exhibited or had a history of food allergies, the ministry said.
Photo: Lin Yen-tung, Taipei Times
The second study looked into medical records from 1996 to 2006 at Veterans General Hospital branches in Taipei, Taichung and Kaohsiung, Tri-Service General Hospital in Taipei and Tzu Chi Hospital in Hualien, which found 202 cases of hospitalization due to food allergies.
The latest study conducted in 2012 collected 20,000 valid responses, the ministry said.
Allergen sources included shrimps, crabs, shellfish, fish, mollusks, eggs, dairy products, peanuts, nuts, wheat products, soy products, mangoes, kiwifruit, meats, pineapples and papaya, the ministry said in a report.
Taipei Veterans General Hospital physician Wu Tzu-tsung (吳子聰), who coordinated the investigation, said that there were many clinical cases of allergies to mangoes, adding that symptoms ranged from slight rashes and swelling to wheals and shock, adding that it seemed to be a uniquely local allergen, as foreigners rarely showed any reaction to the fruit.
Far Eastern Memorial Hospital physician Chen Chia-chun (陳家駿) said that aside from common allergens, there were also isolated cases of reactions to chocolate or strawberries.
Adverse reactions to food were most often expressed in skin conditions, in the respiratory tract or stomach, Chen said.
If the conditions are chronic, people can experience diarrhea or atopic dermatitis, Chen said, adding that acute conditions can include severe difficulty breathing, low blood pressure or shock.
More than 70 percent of food allergies tend to arise before the age of 30, the report said, adding that many people were not aware that they were allergic to certain foods.
As a person ages, it is possible foods that were previously safe will begin to cause an allergic reaction, Chen said, adding that if people feel unwell after eating they should seek medical attention immediately.
Meanwhile, despite requirements by the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) to have allergens labeled on packaged foods, restaurant and wholesalers are yet to take similar measures, making it difficult for consumers to determine whether products contain allergens.
FDA official Lee Wan-chen (李婉媜) said that the Regulations on Food Allergens Labeling (食品過敏原標示規定) mandated clear warnings on food containing shrimp, crabs, mangoes, peanuts, dairy products, eggs and other common allergen sources.
Failure to comply with the regulations is punishable by fines ranging from NT$30,000 to NT$3 million (US$940 to US$93,964), Lee said.
The FDA said that wholesalers can choose for themselves whether to display warnings on edible products containing nuts, wheat, shellfish, goat milk, fish, soy products, or products with residual sulphur dioxide or suphite of 10mg per kilogram.
The Consumers’ Foundation said that the FDA should provide a comprehensive list of foodstuffs linked to allergies so restaurants and wholesalers have a reference point for warnings.
However, because restaurants and eateries might have constantly changing menus, it is difficult to enforce labeling regulations, Lee said.
The FDA urges people to tell restaurant servers about their allergies before ordering, Lee added.
Taiwanese can file complaints with the Tourism Administration to report travel agencies if their activities caused termination of a person’s citizenship, Mainland Affairs Council Minister Chiu Chui-cheng (邱垂正) said yesterday, after a podcaster highlighted a case in which a person’s citizenship was canceled for receiving a single-use Chinese passport to enter Russia. The council is aware of incidents in which people who signed up through Chinese travel agencies for tours of Russia were told they could obtain Russian visas and fast-track border clearance, Chiu told reporters on the sidelines of an event in Taipei. However, the travel agencies actually applied
Japanese footwear brand Onitsuka Tiger today issued a public apology and said it has suspended an employee amid allegations that the staff member discriminated against a Vietnamese customer at its Taipei 101 store. Posting on the social media platform Threads yesterday, a user said that an employee at the store said that “those shoes are very expensive” when her friend, who is a migrant worker from Vietnam, asked for assistance. The employee then ignored her until she asked again, to which she replied: "We don't have a size 37." The post had amassed nearly 26,000 likes and 916 comments as of this
New measures aimed at making Taiwan more attractive to foreign professionals came into effect this month, the National Development Council said yesterday. Among the changes, international students at Taiwanese universities would be able to work in Taiwan without a work permit in the two years after they graduate, explainer materials provided by the council said. In addition, foreign nationals who graduated from one of the world’s top 200 universities within the past five years can also apply for a two-year open work permit. Previously, those graduates would have needed to apply for a work permit using point-based criteria or have a Taiwanese company
The Shilin District Prosecutors’ Office yesterday indicted two Taiwanese and issued a wanted notice for Pete Liu (劉作虎), founder of Shenzhen-based smartphone manufacturer OnePlus Technology Co (萬普拉斯科技), for allegedly contravening the Act Governing Relations Between the People of the Taiwan Area and the Mainland Area (臺灣地區與大陸地區人民關係條例) by poaching 70 engineers in Taiwan. Liu allegedly traveled to Taiwan at the end of 2014 and met with a Taiwanese man surnamed Lin (林) to discuss establishing a mobile software research and development (R&D) team in Taiwan, prosecutors said. Without approval from the government, Lin, following Liu’s instructions, recruited more than 70 software
RSS