The Taipei District Court has found a veterinarian criminally liable for using banned veterinary medicines during chemotherapy on a Maltese dog.
A man surnamed Lin (林) had his dog, named “Angel,” undergo surgery followed by a 12-week chemotherapy regimen at the Eden Animal Hospital in Taipei at the end of 2021 to treat a mast cell tumor.
However, Angel died of acute renal failure in January the following year.
Photo courtesy of the pet owner surnamed Lin
Lin suspected that Angel’s death was caused by an overdose of toceranib, a tumor-targeted drug that is banned for veterinary use in Taiwan.
Lin said the veterinarian administered the banned drug to his dog without his consent and continued the therapy despite severe side effects, adding that the medicine could have been counterfeit, citing its suspicious sources.
In 2022, Lin sought help from then-Democratic Progressive Party lawmaker Kao Chia-yu (高嘉瑜), who raised the issue during a legislative session, and demanded that the then-council of agriculture explain why it had tolerated the illegal use of banned veterinary drugs that “resulted in the death of a dog.”
Her accusations drew criticism from other pet owners and veterinarians, citing the drug’s legality in other countries and that the use of such medicines in Taiwan was often a practical necessity in the absence of alternative treatments.
The incident prompted Kao to advocate for the liberalization of restrictions on veterinary drug imports, while Lin faced a backlash from many Internet users and continued to gather evidence to file a lawsuit against the hospital.
Last year, the hospital’s former superintendent Kao Mao-jen (高茂仁) and veterinarian Hung Yi-ping (洪一平) were convicted of selling banned veterinary medicines, contravening Article 35 of the Veterinary Drugs Control Act (動物用藥品管理法).
The judge in the ruling said Kao and Hung should be held responsible for disrupting the veterinary medicine management system by selling the banned therapy.
In their defense, Kao and Hung said the veterinary therapy was specifically developed to treat mast cell tumors and was not legally available in Taiwan at the time, as no supplier had submitted an application for its importation.
Given that defendants used and sold the therapy in an effort to treat the dog’s disease and admitted wrongdoing, they were given the minimum statutory penalty — a four-month prison sentence, convertible to a fine of NT$1,000 per day, along with two years’ probation, the judge said, adding that they were also required to attend two sessions of a legal education class.
Their conviction made Lin the first person in Taiwan to receive a NT$150,000 monetary reward from the Animal and Plant Health Inspection Agency for reporting the use of banned veterinary drugs.
Lin said that his objection was not to the legal approval of toceranib in Taiwan, but to the use of unapproved, potentially counterfeit medicine from a suspicious source.
The hospital said there was no alternative to toceranib in Taiwan and their prescribed dosage was safe, but imatinib, a legally approved tumor-targeting drug, was available at the time, Lin said. He thanked the court for its ruling.
Kaohsiung Animal Protection Office consultant and attorney Chin Jui-yun (秦睿昀) on Friday said that Lin’s case took place before the launch of the veterinary drug import project, which now allows veterinarians to legally import and use medications unavailable in Taiwan by registering their import plans with the Taiwan Veterinary Medical Association.
Chin also urged the Ministry of Agriculture to amend the law by adding an exclusion clause, which he said would help prevent veterinarians from unintentionally contravening the law.
The manufacture of the remaining 28 M1A2T Abrams tanks Taiwan purchased from the US has recently been completed, and they are expected to be delivered within the next one to two months, a source said yesterday. The Ministry of National Defense is arranging cargo ships to transport the tanks to Taiwan as soon as possible, said the source, who is familiar with the matter. The estimated arrival time ranges from late this month to early next month, the source said. The 28 Abrams tanks make up the third and final batch of a total of 108 tanks, valued at about NT$40.5 billion
Two Taiwanese prosecutors were questioned by Chinese security personnel at their hotel during a trip to China’s Henan Province this month, the Mainland Affairs Council (MAC) said yesterday. The officers had personal information on the prosecutors, including “when they were assigned to their posts, their work locations and job titles,” MAC Deputy Minister and spokesman Liang Wen-chieh (梁文傑) said. On top of asking about their agencies and positions, the officers also questioned the prosecutors about the Cross-Strait Joint Crime-Fighting and Judicial Mutual Assistance Agreement, a pact that serves as the framework for Taiwan-China cooperation on combating crime and providing judicial assistance, Liang
A group from the Taiwanese Designers in Australia association yesterday represented Taiwan at the Midsumma Pride March in Melbourne. The march, held in the St. Kilda suburb, is the city’s largest LGBTQIA+ parade and the flagship event of the annual Midsumma Festival. It attracted more than 45,000 spectators who supported the 400 groups and 10,000 marchers that participated this year, the association said. Taiwanese Designers said they organized a team to march for Taiwan this year, joining politicians, government agencies, professionals and community organizations in showing support for LGBTQIA+ people and diverse communities. As the first country in Asia to legalize same-sex
MOTIVES QUESTIONED The PLA considers Xi’s policies toward Taiwan to be driven by personal considerations rather than military assessment, the Epoch Times reports Chinese President Xi Jinping’s (習近平) latest purge of the Chinese People’s Liberation Army (PLA) leadership might have been prompted by the military’s opposition to plans of invading Taiwan, the Epoch Times said. The Chinese military opposes waging war against Taiwan by a large consensus, putting it at odds with Xi’s vision, the Falun Gong-affiliated daily said in a report on Thursday, citing anonymous sources with insight into the PLA’s inner workings. The opposition is not the opinion of a few generals, but a widely shared view among the PLA cadre, the Epoch Times cited them as saying. “Chinese forces know full well that
RSS