The Homemakers United Foundation held a demonstration at the Department of Health (DOH) yesterday, criticizing its safety standards for radiation contaminated food and saying that it puts the public at risk of consuming food without knowing about its potential dangers.
In light of fears about radiation contamination following last year’s disaster at the Fukushima Dai-ichi nuclear power plant, the foundation said that while Taiwan is the second-largest importer of Japanese food products, and Japanese food products account for the largest share in Taiwan’s imported food import market, the government plans to loosen regulations on radioactive isotopes in food.
Presenting thousands of petition postcards it has collected from the public since October, the foundation asked the government not to relax standards and criticized the DOH for not making information about radiation-contaminated food public.
The foundation said that according to a DOH report on residual radiation in imported Japanese food products, more than 125 items showed levels of Cesium-134, Cesium-137 or Iodine-131. However, the products were still allowed to be sold and consumers are unaware of which products contain these harmful substances, the foundation said.
Foundation president Chen Man-li (陳曼麗) said the DOH’s advisory committee lacked expertise on radioactive pollution and food safety. The DOH had also failed to explain what risk evaluation or research results its decision to amend the regulations were based on, she added.
National Alliance of Taiwan Women’s Associations chairperson Chen Hsiu-hui (陳秀惠) said since such information is not available to consumers, many women are worried about buying food for their families.
The foundation, along with representatives from a number of civic groups, urged the DOH to make public a health risk evaluation report on the safety of radiation contamination food, disclose the methods by which its safety standards are reached and hold explanatory sessions, as well as publishing an imported food radiation inspection report on a daily basis.
In response, the DOH’s Food and Drug Administration (FDA) said that although an amended Standard of Safety Tolerance of Nuclear Fallout or Radioactivity Contamination for Food (食品中原子塵或放射能污染安全容許量標準) was announced on June 29, it was later postponed after civic groups expressed opposition. Safety standards therefore remain unchanged and await re-evaluation, it said.
The FDA added that all food product imports from Japan’s Fukushima, Ibaraki, Tochigi, Gunma and Chiba prefectures are still suspended and eight types of food from Japan — including fresh fruit and vegetables, dairy produce and infant food — are still subject to lot by lot inspection.
Additional reporting by Staff writer
A magnitude 5.7 earthquake struck off Taitung County at 1:09pm today, the Central Weather Administration (CWA) said. The hypocenter was 53km northeast of Taitung County Hall at a depth of 12.5km, CWA data showed. The intensity of the quake, which gauges the actual effect of a seismic event, measured 4 in Taitung County and Hualien County on Taiwan's seven-tier intensity scale, the data showed. The quake had an intensity of 3 in Nantou County, Chiayi County, Yunlin County, Kaohsiung and Tainan, the data showed. There were no immediate reports of damage following the quake.
A BETRAYAL? It is none of the ministry’s business if those entertainers love China, but ‘you cannot agree to wipe out your own country,’ the MAC minister said Taiwanese entertainers in China would have their Taiwanese citizenship revoked if they are holding Chinese citizenship, Mainland Affairs Council (MAC) Minister Chiu Chui-cheng (邱垂正) said. Several Taiwanese entertainers, including Patty Hou (侯佩岑) and Ouyang Nana (歐陽娜娜), earlier this month on their Weibo (微博) accounts shared a picture saying that Taiwan would be “returned” to China, with tags such as “Taiwan, Province of China” or “Adhere to the ‘one China’ principle.” The MAC would investigate whether those Taiwanese entertainers have Chinese IDs and added that it would revoke their Taiwanese citizenship if they did, Chiu told the Chinese-language Liberty Times (sister paper
The Chinese wife of a Taiwanese, surnamed Liu (劉), who openly advocated for China’s use of force against Taiwan, would be forcibly deported according to the law if she has not left Taiwan by Friday, National Immigration Agency (NIA) officials said yesterday. Liu, an influencer better known by her online channel name Yaya in Taiwan (亞亞在台灣), obtained permanent residency via marriage to a Taiwanese. She has been reported for allegedly repeatedly espousing pro-unification comments on her YouTube and TikTok channels, including comments supporting China’s unification with Taiwan by force and the Chinese government’s stance that “Taiwan is an inseparable part of China.” Liu
MINOR DISRUPTION: The outage affected check-in and security screening, while passport control was done manually and runway operations continued unaffected The main departure hall and other parts of Terminal 2 at Taiwan Taoyuan International Airport lost power on Tuesday, causing confusion among passengers before electricity was fully restored more than an hour later. The outage, the cause of which is still being investigated, began at about midday and affected parts of Terminal 2, including the check-in gates, the security screening area and some duty-free shops. Parts of the terminal immediately activated backup power sources, while others remained dark until power was restored in some of the affected areas starting at 12:23pm. Power was fully restored at 1:13pm. Taoyuan International Airport Corp said in a
RSS