The government should help doctors and pharmacists resolve disputes over regenerative medicine, lawmakers and medical groups said yesterday, a day before the legislature was expected to begin reviewing two bills concerning the emerging medical field.
The Social Welfare and Environmental Hygiene Committee is to discuss the proposed laws — the regenerative medicine and the regenerative medicine pharmaceutical manufacturing bills — starting today.
The field seeks to regenerate or replace cells, organs and tissue to restore function using artificial organs made of biological materials.
Photo: Tu Chien-jung, Taipei Times
A panel of experts in medicine, drugs, ethics and law should be convened to help forge a consensus between the Taiwan Medical Association and the Federation of Taiwan Pharmacists’ Associations, Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) Legislator Lin Wei-chou (林為洲), a member of the committee, told a news conference at the legislature in Taipei.
The federation believes that the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) should retain authority to approve regenerative medicine products, as it does for any other pharmaceutical product, Lin said.
The association says that as the products are sufficiently different from conventional medications, use authorization should be controlled by a proposed regenerative medicine evaluation board, he said.
Regenerative medicine is an important rising field and lawmakers would like to pass the bills as soon as possible, but the government must end the dispute to avoid public confusion that could arise from the disagreement between the medical groups, he said.
The Ministry of Health and Welfare and the Ministry of Education should create a platform to oversee the education, training and certification of professionals involved in regenerative medicine, Lin said.
The measures, which would ensure proper division of labor and patient safety, could be implemented administratively after passage of the legislation, he said.
The products fit Taiwan’s legal definition of drugs and most regulators around the world agree that they should be regulated as such, federation president Huang Jin-shun (黃金舜) said.
Keeping expertise in technological development and manufacturing separate would facilitate efficiency in the division of labor and certifications to manage a lack of certainty and consistency in effects of regenerative medicine, Huang said.
Most overseas regulators have defined the products as drugs, as the classification allows for more rigorous standards to be enforced in their manufacture, association spokeswoman Chang Wen-ching (張文靜) said.
As the cultivation of live cells in regenerative medicine is more complex than making conventional drugs, the regulatory standards must be at least equal to those of drugs, Chang said.
Additional reporting by CNA
A Keelung high school on Saturday night apologized for using a picture containing a Chinese flag on the cover of the senior yearbook, adding that it has recalled the books and pledged to provide students new ones before graduation on Thursday. Of 309 Affiliated Keelung Maritime Senior High School of National Taiwan Ocean University graduates, 248 had purchased the yearbook. Some students said that the printer committed an outrageous error in including the picture, while others said that nobody would notice such a small flag on the cover. Other students said that they cared more about the photographs of classmates and what was
GOING INTERNATIONAL: Rakuten Girls squad leader Ula Shen said she was surprised that baseball fans outside of Taiwan not only knew of them, but also knew their names Major League Baseball’s (MLB) Oakland Athletics on Saturday hosted its first Taiwanese Heritage Day event at the Oakland Coliseum with a performance by Taiwanese cheerleading squad the Rakuten Girls and a video message from Vice President William Lai (賴清德). The Rakuten Girls, who are the cheerleaders for the CPBL’s Rakuten Monkeys, performed in front of a crowd of more than 2,000 people, followed by a prerecorded address by Lai about Taiwan’s baseball culture and democratic spirit. Taiwanese pitcher Sha Tzu-chen (沙子宸), who was signed by the Athletics earlier this year, was also present. Mizuki Lin (林襄), considered a “baseball cheerleading goddess” by Taiwanese
WAY OF THE RUKAI: ‘Values deemed worthy often exist amid discomfort, so when people go against the flow, nature becomes entwined with our lives,’ a student said “Run, don’t walk” after your dreams, Nvidia cofounder and chief executive officer Jensen Huang (黃仁勳) told National Taiwan University (NTU) graduates yesterday, as several major universities held in-person graduation ceremonies for the first time since the COVID-19 pandemic. “What will you create? Whatever it is, run after it. Run, don’t walk. Remember, either you’re running for food, or you are running from becoming food. Oftentimes, you can’t tell which. Either way, run,” he said. Huang was one of several tech executives addressing graduating students at Taiwanese universities. National Chengchi University held two ceremonies, with alumnus Patrick Pan (潘先國), who is head of Taiwan
A 14-legged giant isopod is the highlight of a new dish at a ramen restaurant in Taipei and it has people lining up — both for pictures and for a bite from this bowl of noodles. Since “The Ramen Boy” launched the limited-edition noodle bowl on Monday last week, declaring in a social media post that it had “finally got this dream ingredient,” more than 100 people have joined a waiting list to dine at the restaurant. “It is so attractive because of its appearance — it looks very cute,” said the 37-year-old owner of the restaurant, who wanted to be
RSS