At least 14 people were confirmed to have lead poisoning, health authorities said yesterday, in an investigation into heavy metal poisoning from medications prescribed by three traditional Chinese medicine establishments in Taichung.
Authorities are testing 191 samples of prescriptions by Lu Shih-ming’s (呂世明) Sheng Tang Chinese Medicine Clinic (盛唐中醫), Hung Chang-hung’s (洪彰宏) Jiu Fu Chinese Medicine Clinic (九福中醫) and Ou Kuo-liang’s (歐國樑) Shin Long Medicine Co (欣隆藥業).
The trio were detained and their businesses shut down on Friday following allegations that Lu and Hung had prescribed medicine containing cinnabar and lead tetroxide, although Taiwan has banned both since 2005.
The case came to light last week, when Taichung City Councilor Chang Yen-tung (張彥彤) said his family — including his father, former Taichung City Council speaker Chang Hung-nien (張宏年) — suffered from heavy metal poisoning after taking medicine prescribed by Sheng Tang clinic.
New Taipei City Councilor Liu Mei-fang (劉美芳) yesterday said her father, former Taiwan Provincial Consultative Council speaker Liu Ping-wei (劉炳偉), who died in April, had also sought treatment at Sheng Tang for oral cancer.
“I am certain my father was a victim in this case, as he was good friends with Chang Hung-nien, who introduced him to Sheng Tang, saying it has a reputation for treating cancer with traditional Chinese medicine. My father visited Taichung regularly over the past few years and took medication from that clinic,” she said.
Lu is an influential figure in the Chinese medicine industry in central Taiwan, and in 2018, formed a Sheng Tang Chinese medicine network to promote business collaborations and distribution with clinics in other cities and counties, Chang Yen-tung said, adding that there are likely more victims.
A group of Taiwanese-American and Tibetan-American students at Harvard University on Saturday disrupted Chinese Ambassador to the US Xie Feng’s (謝鋒) speech at the school, accusing him of being responsible for numerous human rights violations. Four students — two Taiwanese Americans and two from Tibet — held up banners inside a conference hall where Xie was delivering a speech at the opening ceremony of the Harvard Kennedy School China Conference 2024. In a video clip provided by the Coalition of Students Resisting the CCP (Chinese Communist Party), Taiwanese-American Cosette Wu (吳亭樺) and Tibetan-American Tsering Yangchen are seen holding banners that together read:
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