Steps will be taken to ensure the safety of Chinese medicinal herbs imported from China as soon as the two sides forge a food-safety agreement, an official at the Department of Health (DOH) said on Friday.
Food safety is one of the major issues on the agenda of next week’s talks between Chiang Pin-kung (江丙坤), chairman of the Straits Exchange Foundation, and Chen Yunlin (陳雲林), chairman of China’s Association for Relations Across the Taiwan Strait.
The issue took center stage with the exposure last month of a toxic milk powder scandal in China that swiftly led to global concern over substandard food products produced in China.
Lin Yi-hsin (林宜信), chairman of the DOH Committee on Chinese Medicine and Pharmacy, said that once the two sides seal the food safety agreement, the committee will seek quality certification for all medicinal herbs imported from China.
Taiwan consumes more than 10,000 tonnes of medicinal herbs, which are used in traditional Chinese medical treatment and as culinary ingredients.
While 90 percent of these herbs, in a wide variety, are imported from China, it has been difficult for health authorities to control the quality because there is no clear channel between the two sides for the management of herbal medicine, Lin said.
The quality of China-produced medicinal herbs on the market is mixed, the official said, adding that quite often such imports are found to contain toxic substances like aflatoxin and heavy metals.
However, the problem will be addressed if the two sides sign the agreement on food safety, Lin said, adding that Chinese medicinal herbs are categorized as food products.
Lin said that the DOH committee has been making efforts in recent years to promote the management of Chinese medicinal ingredients.
It recently completed work on the proper labeling of these products, and is currently working to set standards on the permissible levels of toxic substances in medicine herbs, he said.
The committee will later concentrate on ensuring the safety of medicinal herb sources in China, Lin said.
Foreign tourists who purchase a seven-day Taiwan Pass are to get a second one free of charge as part of a government bid to boost tourism, the Tourism Administration said yesterday. A pair of Taiwan Passes is priced at NT$5,000 (US$156.44), an agency staff member said, adding that the passes can be used separately. The pass can be used in many of Taiwan’s major cities and to travel to several tourist resorts. It expires seven days after it is first used. The pass is a three-in-one package covering the high-speed rail system, mass rapid transport (MRT) services and the Taiwan Tourist Shuttle services,
Drinking a lot of water or milk would not help a person who has ingested terbufos, a toxic chemical that has been identified as the likely cause of three deaths, a health expert said yesterday. An 83-year-old woman surnamed Tseng (曾) and two others died this week after eating millet dumplings with snails that Tseng had made. Tseng died on Tuesday and others ate the leftovers when they went to her home to mourn her death that evening. Twelve people became ill after eating the dumplings following Tseng’s death. Their symptoms included vomiting and convulsions. Six were hospitalized, with two of them
DIVA-READY: The city’s deadline for the repairs is one day before pop star Jody Chiang is to perform at the Taipei Dome for the city’s Double Ten National Day celebrations The Taipei City Government has asked Farglory Group (遠雄集團) to repair serious water leaks in the Taipei Dome before Friday next week, Taipei Mayor Chiang Wan-an (蔣萬安) said yesterday, following complaints that many areas at the stadium were leaking during two baseball games over the weekend. The dome on Saturday and Sunday hosted two games in tribute to CTBC Brothers’ star Chou Szu-chi (周思齊) ahead of his retirement from the CPBL. The games each attracted about 40,000 people, filling the stadium to capacity. However, amid heavy rain, many people reported water leaking on some seats, at the entrance and exit areas, and the
BIG collection: The herbarium holds more than 560,000 specimens, from the Japanese colonial period to the present, including the Wulai azalea, which is now extinct in the wild The largest collection of plant specimens in Taiwan, the Taipei Botanical Garden’s herbarium, is celebrating its 100th anniversary with an exhibition that opened on Friday. The herbarium provides critical historical documents for botanists and is the first of its kind in Taiwan, Taiwan Forestry Research Institute director Tseng Yen-hsueh (曾彥學) said. It is housed in a two-story red brick building, which opened during 1924. At the time, it stored 30,000 plant specimens from almost 6,000 species, including Taiwanese plant samples collected by Tomitaro Makino, the “father of Japanese botany,” Tseng said. The herbarium collection has grown in the century since its