New Power Party (NPP) Legislator Claire Wang (王婉諭) on Friday called for breast milk to be regulated after a YouTube channel drew criticism for its descriptions of breast milk purchased online.
In a video posted on Tuesday last week, YouTuber Hsiao-yu (小玉) was seen tasting breast milk purchased online and describing it as spoiled soy milk.
The video met with angry responses from the public, including mothers who breastfeed their children.
Photo: Liao Chen-huei, Taipei Times
At a news conference with lactation experts on Friday, Wang said that the video communicated incorrect information and was disrespectful toward mothers.
For several years, local representatives and groups have been drawing attention to the “chaos” that is the sale of breast milk online, she said.
Citing information from the US Food and Drug Administration, Wang said that a baby could risk contracting HIV, hepatitis and other diseases if they drink breast milk that is not from their birth mother and which has not been tested.
However, breast milk is still listed on major e-commerce platforms and regulations do not specify whether it can be sold as a product, she said.
When similar incidents have occurred in the past, local governments have only been able to use the Consumer Protection Act (消費者保護法) to order sellers to take down listings of breast milk of unknown origin, Wang said.
This is a “passive” and “unreasonable” measure, she said, adding that the act regulates products that are being sold legally, but breast milk has never been a legal product.
Moreover, responding to lawmakers’ questions in 2016, the Ministry of Health and Welfare said that breast milk was a “bodily fluid and not a product,” she said.
The Food and Drug Administration identifies breast milk as a bodily fluid and not food, and thus it is not subject to the regulations in the Act Governing Food Safety and Sanitation (食品安全衛生管理法), Wang said.
The Centers for Disease Control said that although breast milk is a bodily fluid and has certain transmission risks, it is not considered a “specimen of communicable disease” as defined in the Communicable Disease Control Act (傳染病防治法), she said.
While the Health Promotion Administration said that it does not support any form of breast milk trade, it does not have clear rules restricting it, Wang said.
As the government does not support the public sale of breast milk from unknown origins, the Ministry of Health and Welfare should lay out clear regulations, Wang said.
Taiwan Academy of Breastfeeding representative Fang Li-jung (方麗容), who is responsible for Taipei City Hospital’s Human Milk Bank, said that as some diseases can be transmitted through breast milk, the purpose of the bank is to provide safe breast milk.
The institution uses a meticulous process to ensure the milk is safe, she said.
Consuming breast milk purchased online is very risky, she said, adding that it is “absolutely unfit” for children to consume.
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