The Taiwan Statebuilding Party and Taiwan Medical Products Anti-Counterfeiting Taskforce (TMPACT) members yesterday called for online social media and commerce platforms to require real-name registration for placing drug advertisements, to prevent counterfeit or illegal drugs from being sold online.
Taiwan Statebuilding Party Tainan City Councilor Lee Chong-lim (李宗霖) said he received a complaint last month saying that many food products and drugs that are not authorized by the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) can be easily bought from China through Shopee (樂購蝦皮), a popular e-commerce platform.
Investigating the matter, Lee said he found that he could easily place orders online and receive the items in about 10 days, and that some of the packages are printed with simplified Chinese characters, adding that some are imported by Taiwanese for resale, while others are delivered directly from China.
Photo: Wang Yi-sung, Taipei Times
He said the drugs imported from China do not have an FDA drug license number, so they are considered illegal according to the Pharmaceutical Affairs Act (藥事法), and that people found manufacturing or importing counterfeit or illegal drugs could face a heavy penalty or imprisonment under the same act, but despite this, the drugs are flagrantly being advertised and sold online.
“If the government cannot take action and show that it is determined to stop these drugs from being sold online, there will not only be food safety issues, but also more harm to people’s health,” he said.
TMPACT member Hsieh Yi-ni (謝宜倪), a pharmacist, said the WHO has warned that counterfeit medicines pose a significant risk to public health worldwide, adding that Taiwan’s Customs Administration seizes more than 50,000 counterfeit products per year, including nearly 28,000 counterfeit drugs.
She said the common types of counterfeit drugs being sold are aphrodisiacs, weight loss drugs and even some claiming to be for cancer treatment.
Advertisements for counterfeit or illegal drugs placed on social media or e-commerce platforms are rampant, Hsieh said, adding that some use ambiguous drug names and imply that they are directly imported from the original pharmaceutical companies, misleading the public.
Sometimes the advertisements even use photographs of pharmacists or pharmaceutical companies to deceive consumers, she said.
The TMPACT calls on online social media and commerce platforms to require real-name registration for placing drug advertisements and bear the liability, urges the government to strengthen its public messaging that drugs cannot be randomly imported and sold online, she said.
The FDA said yesterday that many Web sites pretend to be legal pharmaceutical companies or pharmacists selling drugs online, but are in fact Web sites set up in other countries that deliver drugs from unknown sources.
The FDA, local health departments and the Customs Administration have been cooperating on inspecting drugs sold in the market and submitting international parcels, as well as asking e-commerce or social media platforms to strengthen their management and monitoring of online sales of counterfeit drugs, it said.
When suspected sales of illegal drugs are found, the e-commerce or social media platforms are asked to remove the page, while the local health department is informed to handle the case, and sometimes it would be handed to the police department or prosecutors for further investigation, the FDA said.
An alleged US government plan to encourage Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co (TSMC) to form a joint venture with Intel to boost US chipmaking would place the Taiwanese foundry giant in a more disadvantageous position than proposed tariffs on imported chips, a semiconductor expert said yesterday. If TSMC forms a joint venture with its US rival, it faces the risk of technology outflow, said Liu Pei-chen (劉佩真), a researcher at the Taiwan Industry Economics Database of the Taiwan Institute of Economic Research. A report by international financial services firm Baird said that Asia semiconductor supply chain talks suggest that the US government would
ANNUAL LIGHT SHOW: The lanterns are exhibited near Taoyuan’s high-speed rail station and around the Taoyuan Sports Park Station of the airport MRT line More than 400 lanterns are to be on display at the annual Taiwan Lantern Festival, which officially starts in Taoyuan today. The city is hosting the festival for the second time — the first time was in 2016. The Tourism Administration held a rehearsal of the festival last night. Chunghwa Telecom donated the main lantern of the festival to the Taoyuan City Government. The lanterns are exhibited in two main areas: near the high-speed rail (HSR) station in Taoyuan, which is at the A18 station of the Taoyuan Airport MRT, and around the Taoyuan Sports Park Station of the MRT
Starlux Airlines on Tuesday announced it is to launch new direct flights from Taiwan Taoyuan International Airport to Ontario, California, on June 2. The carrier said it plans to deploy the new-generation Airbus A350 on the Taipei-Ontario route. The Airbus A350 features a total of 306 seats, including four in first class, 26 in business class, 36 in premium economy and 240 in economy. According to Starlux’s initial schedule, four flights would run between Taoyuan and Ontario per week: Monday, Wednesday, Friday and Saturday. Flights are to depart from Taoyuan at 8:05pm and arrive in California at 5:05pm (local time), while return flights
Nearly 800 Indian tourists are to arrive this week on an incentive tour organized by Indian company Asian Painted Ltd, making it the largest tour group from the South Asian nation to visit since the COVID-19 pandemic. The travelers are scheduled to arrive in six batches from Sunday to Feb. 25 for five-day tours, the Tourism Administration said yesterday. The tour would take the travelers, most of whom are visiting Taiwan for the first time, to several tourist sites in Taipei and Yilan County, including tea houses in Taipei’s Maokong (貓空), Dadaocheng (大稻埕) and Ximending (西門町) areas. They would also visit