Several civic groups yesterday urged the government not to allow the importation of US pork containing ractopamine.
President Tsai Ing-wen (蔡英文) on Aug. 28 announced that Taiwan would set maximum residue limits (MRL) for leanness-enhancing feed additive ractopamine in pork imported from the US.
Minister of Health and Welfare Chen Shih-chung (陳時中) on Saturday unveiled the ministry’s MRLs for US pork containing ractopamine, which are scheduled to take effect on Jan. 1 next year.
Photo: Liu Hsin-de, Taipei Times
The Food and Drug Administration (FDA), which is overseen by the ministry, on Monday published draft amendments to the relevant regulations.
The amendments to the Standards for Veterinary Drug Residue Limits in Foods (動物用藥殘留標準), the importation standards for US and Canadian beef and beef products, and the Regulations on Bulk Food Labeling (散裝食品標示規定) would be open for public review for seven days, after which they would be reviewed and any necessary changes made before taking effect, the FDA said.
The MRLs for US pork containing ractopamine are 0.04 parts per million (ppm) for liver and kidneys, and 0.01ppm for all other parts of the animal.
Photo: CNA
The draft amendment for the regulation on US beef removes the requirement that importers provide documentation showing that “the beef or beef products were produced at a verified establishment under the USDA’s [US Department of Agriculture’s] less than 30 month age-verification USDA Quality System Assessment program for Taiwan,” effectively lifting a ban on US beef from cattle over the age of 30 months.
Instead, importers would be required to provide documentation showing that “the beef or beef products were derived from cattle that were slaughtered in meat establishments certified by the USDA as eligible to export beef or beef products to Taiwan, and that passed ante-mortem and post-mortem inspection conducted by USDA personnel under the supervision of the resident designated veterinary representative.”
As for the regulations on bulk food labeling, in addition to the existing requirement that businesses mark the country of origin (COO) on bulk food made with beef and other edible parts of cattle, the draft amendment requires that businesses place COO labels on bulk food made with pork and other edible parts of pigs.
However, as milk and beef tallow are not among ingredients that require COO labeling, bulk food products made with pork fat would not be required to bear COO labeling either, with the exception of lard sold as an end product.
Chen yesterday said that the ministry would work toward requiring COO labeling for food products that use any part of the pig, including pig fat, adding that it would continue to communicate with interested parties and that the regulations could be further changed.
Representatives from several civic groups, including the Taiwanese Peasants’ Union, Taiwan Rural Front, Green Farmers’ Family, People’s Supervisory Alliance and Changhua Medical Alliance, at a conference at the Legislative Yuan urged the government to halt the policy, citing concerns over people’s health and undemocratic decisionmaking.
They presented three demands to the government: start trade negotiations with the US without lifting the ban on US pork and beef imports; conduct a ractopamine health risk assessment and risk communications based the standards set by the World Organization for Animal Health; and allow the Legislative Yuan to deliberate on the policy to protect basic democratic values.
Changhua Christian Hospital pediatrician Chien Jien-wen (錢建文) said that there is insufficient research on the health effects of ractopamine exposure in children, so the MRLs calculated through experiments might put children’s health at risk.
A pig farm owner from Yunlin County, surnamed Hsu (許), said he has raised pigs for more than four decades and has known local farmers who in the 1990s secretly used leanness-enhancing additives.
The additives increased the sudden death rate in pigs by 5 to 30 percent after one month, Hsu said.
“The government said that even if a person eats it [pork with ractopamine levels lower than the MRL] for their entire life, they would not suffer health damage. I think that is nonsense,” he said.
If the government is being forced by the US to implement the policy, it should at least hold public hearings and pass it through legislative review for people to understand, Hsu added.
Farming advocate Yang Ju-men (楊儒門) said the government should add warning labels on products made with US pork containing ractopamine residue, similar to those on cigarette packages, to warn people on possible health risks.
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:
UNAWARE: Many people sit for long hours every day and eat unhealthy foods, putting them at greater risk of developing one of the ‘three highs,’ an expert said More than 30 percent of adults aged 40 or older who underwent a government-funded health exam were unaware they had at least one of the “three highs” — high blood pressure, high blood lipids or high blood sugar, the Health Promotion Administration (HPA) said yesterday. Among adults aged 40 or older who said they did not have any of the “three highs” before taking the health exam, more than 30 percent were found to have at least one of them, Adult Preventive Health Examination Service data from 2022 showed. People with long-term medical conditions such as hypertension or diabetes usually do not
Heat advisories were in effect for nine administrative regions yesterday afternoon as warm southwesterly winds pushed temperatures above 38°C in parts of southern Taiwan, the Central Weather Administration (CWA) said. As of 3:30pm yesterday, Tainan’s Yujing District (玉井) had recorded the day’s highest temperature of 39.7°C, though the measurement will not be included in Taiwan’s official heat records since Yujing is an automatic rather than manually operated weather station, the CWA said. Highs recorded in other areas were 38.7°C in Kaohsiung’s Neimen District (內門), 38.2°C in Chiayi City and 38.1°C in Pingtung’s Sandimen Township (三地門), CWA data showed. The spell of scorching
POLICE INVESTIGATING: A man said he quit his job as a nurse at Taipei Tzu Chi Hospital as he had been ‘disgusted’ by the behavior of his colleagues A man yesterday morning wrote online that he had witnessed nurses taking photographs and touching anesthetized patients inappropriately in Taipei Tzu Chi Hospital’s operating theaters. The man surnamed Huang (黃) wrote on the Professional Technology Temple bulletin board that during his six-month stint as a nurse at the hospital, he had seen nurses taking pictures of patients, including of their private parts, after they were anesthetized. Some nurses had also touched patients inappropriately and children were among those photographed, he said. Huang said this “disgusted” him “so much” that “he felt the need to reveal these unethical acts in the operating theater