The selling of tampons on online auction Web sites will be banned starting this Tuesday, according to a Department of Health order issued last week.
The department demanded that tampons, along with several other types of medical equipment, be forbidden from being sold online. The order was delivered to a popular Internet auction site last weekend.
The department said that tampons were considered medical appliances, and thus could not be sold online. Only pharmacists with a license can sell medical products, it added.
The department's Pharmaceutical Affairs Division director Lin Hsiu-chuan (林秀娟) said the nation models its categorization of medical appliances on the US Food and Drug Administration's classifications.
As a result, the department imposed regulations on selling tampons when they were first introduced into Taiwan, she said.
Using tampons is riskier than sanitary towels because they are inserted into the body, Lin said, adding that the country also requires manufacturers to put instructions and warnings on Tampon boxes.
The department said buying tampons from online sellers may not guarantee buyers good after-sale service or product safety.
However, for online sellers and buyers of tampons, the ban is set to cause much inconvenience.
A tampon seller surnamed Yu called the department's ban the result of "old-fashioned thinking." She said tampons have been a necessity in Western countries for years and are environmentally friendly.
She said the department was ignoring the popularity of the online method of buying.
"The Internet is a trend. They [the department] should keep this in mind," she said.
Huang Hsiao-hui (黃曉惠), a 32-year-old housewife, said she could not understand why tampons were considered medical appliances.
As she is allergic to sanitary towels, Huang said she has been buying US and Japanese branded tampons online for more than two years.
She said she would feel more at ease if there were a trustworthy platform to buy tampons online, but the department had now taken this option away.
Huang said if the department would not allow tampons to be sold on the Internet, it could at least make tampons widely available in other places.
According to an article written by Cheng Ling-fang (成令方), chairwoman of the Graduate Institute of Gender Study at Kaohsiung Medical University, and Hsu Pei-hsin (許培欣), a teacher at Tung Fang Institute of Technology in the Chinese-language China Times in early March, only 2.1 percent of women in Taiwan use tampons, while up to 81 percent of women in the US are tampon users.
Cheng and Hsu said the low usage rate for tampons in Taiwan should be attributed to "the department's old-fashioned regulations."
A decision to describe a Chinese Ministry of Foreign Affairs statement on Singapore’s Taiwan policy as “erroneous” was made because the city-state has its own “one China policy” and has not followed Beijing’s “one China principle,” Deputy Minister of Foreign Affairs Tien Chung-kwang (田中光) said yesterday. It has been a longstanding practice for the People’s Republic of China (PRC) to speak on other countries’ behalf concerning Taiwan, Tien said. The latest example was a statement issued by the PRC after a meeting between Singaporean Prime Minister Lawrence Wong (黃循財) and Chinese President Xi Jinping (習近平) on the sidelines of the APEC summit
Taiwan’s passport ranked 34th in the world, with access to 141 visa-free destinations, according to the latest update to the Henley Passport Index released today. The index put together by Henley & Partners ranks 199 passports globally based on the number of destinations holders can access without a visa out of 227, and is updated monthly. The 141 visa-free destinations for Taiwanese passport holders are a slight decrease from last year, when holders had access to 145 destinations. Botswana and Columbia are among the countries that have recently ended visa-free status for Taiwanese after “bowing to pressure from the Chinese government,” the Ministry
HEALTHCARE: Following a 2022 Constitutional Court ruling, Taiwanese traveling overseas for six months would no longer be able to suspend their insurance Measures allowing people to suspend National Health Insurance (NHI) services if they plan to leave the country for six months would be abolished starting Dec. 23, NHIA Director-General Shih Chung-liang (石崇良) said yesterday. The decision followed the Constitutional Court’s ruling in 2022 that the regulation was unconstitutional and that it would invalidate the regulation automatically unless the NHIA amended it to conform with the Constitution. The agency would amend the regulations to remove the articles and sections that allow the suspension of NHI services, and also introduce provisional clauses for those who suspended their NHI services before Dec. 23, Shih said. According to
Minister of Labor Ho Pei-shan (何佩珊) yesterday apologized after the suicide of a civil servant earlier this month and announced that a supervisor accused of workplace bullying would be demoted. On Nov. 4, a 39-year-old information analyst at the Workforce Development Agency’s (WDA) northern branch, which covers greater Taipei and Keelung, as well as Yilan, Lienchiang and Kinmen counties, was found dead in their office. WDA northern branch director Hsieh Yi-jung (謝宜容), who has been accused of involvement in workplace bullying, would be demoted to a nonsupervisory position, Ho told a news conference in Taipei. WDA Director-General Tsai Meng-liang (蔡孟良) said he would
RSS