A nationwide inspection of five categories of food and beverages in stores was launched yesterday, the first day companies were required by the Department of Health (DOH) to present certificates showing that their products were free of six prohibited chemicals.
Manufacturers could also provide documentation indicating that their products were not made with ingredients sourced from Yu Shen Chemical Co (昱伸香料有限公司) or Pin Han Perfumery Co (賓漢香料公司), two suppliers that have been found to use di(2-ethylhexyl) phthalate, or DEHP, and diisononyl phthalate, or DINP, respectively, in clouding agents they sold to food processors.
The other chemicals targeted for inspection are di-n-octyl phthalate (DNOP), diisodecyl phthalate (DIDP), di-n-butyl phthalate (DBP) and butylbenzyl phthalate (BBP).
Photo: AFP
Companies that failed to meet the Monday midnight deadline to produce the required certification will have their products removed from the market.
The five categories of products are sports drinks, juices, tea drinks, fruit jams or syrups, and tablets or powders, all of which usually contain clouding agents.
Three retailers were fined yesterday because they had not followed the Department of Health’s instructions on providing proof, including one branch of Carrefour and two branches of Hi-Life, Food and Drug Administration Director-General Kang Jaw-jou (康照洲) said.
Kang said that other outlets such as small shops and night market food stalls that sell beverages would also be inspected, but the first wave of inspections would target large supermarkets and chain stores.
Violators face a maximum fine of NT$300,000 under the Act Governing Food Sanitation (食品衛生管理法).
Those who comply with the new requirements, but do so in a manner that is inconvenient to consumers, such as putting the documentation in a folder that consumers must flip through in order to find product information, will be instructed by health officials to make improvements, the officials said.
In a visit to the Department of Health yesterday, Premier Wu Den-yih (吳敦義) said laboratories around the country need to speed up their work because of the huge backlog of products needing to be tested.
Any food and beverage manufacturer caught falsifying certificates on the chemical content of their products would be punished, he said.
Meanwhile, Hong Kong health authorities banned two Taiwanese drinks after tests showed they were tainted with excessive amounts of DEHP.
They said six samples from different batches of Speed sports drink and Speed lemon flavor sports drink, both made by the same Taiwanese company, were found to be laced with DEHP.
Taipei also warned Manila last week that DEHP could have been illegally added to products that were exported to the Philippines.
“Our government has asked Taiwan for a list, and we are tracking these products,” Philippine Food and Drug Administration spokeswoman Jesusa Joyce Cirunay said yesterday.
She did not name the brands on the list, saying no traces of DEHP contamination have been found and there have been no reports of people falling ill in the Philippines.
Some supermarkets in the Philippines have voluntarily pulled various Taiwanese beverages from their shelves after receiving reports they may be contaminated, reports from Manila said.
While low doses are generally safe, high doses or prolonged exposure to DEHP could have harmful effects, such as retarding the development of boys’ testes, Cirunay said.
“Children are especially prone to harmful effects of high doses of DEHP, or to repeated exposure which can lead to testicular effects, fertility problems, and toxicity to kidneys,” the Philippine agency said in a health advisory.
Taiwan’s Lee Chia-hao (李佳豪) on Sunday won a silver medal at the All England Open Badminton Championships in Birmingham, England, a career best. Lee, 25, took silver in the final of the men’s singles against world No. 1 Shi Yuqi (石宇奇) of China, who won 21-17, 21-19 in a tough match that lasted 51 minutes. After the match, the Taiwanese player, who ranks No. 22 in the world, said it felt unreal to be challenging an opponent of Shi’s caliber. “I had to be in peak form, and constantly switch my rhythm and tactics in order to score points effectively,” he said. Lee got
‘CROWN JEWEL’: Washington ‘can delay and deter’ Chinese President Xi Jinping’s plans for Taiwan, but it is ‘a very delicate situation there,’ the secretary of state said US President Donald Trump is opposed to any change to Taiwan’s “status quo” by force or extortion and would maintain that policy, US Secretary of State Marco Rubio told the Hugh Hewitt Show host on Wednesday. The US’ policy is to maintain Taiwan’s “status quo” and to oppose any changes in the situation by force or extortion, Rubio said. Hewitt asked Rubio about the significance of Trump earlier this month speaking with Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co (台積電) chairman C.C. Wei (魏哲家) at the White House, a meeting that Hewitt described as a “big deal.” Asked whether the meeting was an indication of the
‘RELATIVELY STRONG LANGUAGE’: An expert said the state department has not softened its language on China and was ‘probably a little more Taiwan supportive’ China’s latest drills near Taiwan on Monday were “brazen and irresponsible threats,” a US Department of State spokesperson said on Tuesday, while reiterating Washington’s decades-long support of Taipei. “China cannot credibly claim to be a ‘force for stability in a turbulent world’ while issuing brazen and irresponsible threats toward Taiwan,” the unnamed spokesperson said in an e-mailed response to media queries. Washington’s enduring commitment to Taiwan will continue as it has for 45 years and the US “will continue to support Taiwan in the face of China’s military, economic, informational and diplomatic pressure campaign,” the e-mail said. “Alongside our international partners, we firmly
The Ministry of Foreign Affairs yesterday said it has lodged a protest with Pretoria after the name of the Taipei Liaison Office in South Africa was changed to the “Taipei Commercial Office” on the South African Department of International Relations and Cooperation’s (DIRCO) Web site. In October last year, the South African government asked Taiwan to relocate the Taipei Liaison Office, the nation’s de facto embassy, out of Pretoria. It later agreed to continue negotiating through official channels, but in January asked that the office be relocated by the end of this month. As of the middle of last month, DIRCO’s Web
RSS