Genetically edited foods might pose unpredictable health risks and should be regulated as genetically modified products, advocates and lawmakers said yesterday, demanding that the government be more strict about such products.
At a news conference in Taipei, the Homemakers United Foundation demanded that the Food and Drug Administration propose regulations for genetically edited foods, saying they should be regarded as genetically modified organisms (GMO).
It also called on the US government not to regard the nation’s regulations on GMO foods and their exclusion from school lunches as trade barriers.
Since the global campaign “March Against Monsanto” targeting GMO products of US-based agrochemical corporation Monsanto was launched in the US in May 2013, local opponents of GMOs have held events to echo the campaign in May every year, National Taiwan University agronomy professor Warren Kuo (郭華仁) said.
People should support non-GMO foods and collectively make sure the nation produces crops that are not genetically modified, Democratic Progressive Party Legislator Chen Man-li (陳曼麗) said.
Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) Legislator Lee Yen-hsiu (李彥秀) called on lawmakers to work together to include genetically edited products in the Act Governing Food Safety and Sanitation (食品安全衛生管理法), which stipulates that product labels should reveal any GMO ingredients.
While domestically produced soybeans are more expensive, the Council of Agriculture (COA) is encouraging rice farmers to grow other grains by providing subsidies, COA Agriculture and Food Agency section head Cheng Yung-ching (鄭永青) said.
The agency is to promote organic soy milk at local schools, possibly starting with milk made of black beans, because they are cheaper, she said.
As genome editing is a relatively new domain, the department is still collecting information about it, COA Department of Science and Technology Deputy Director-General Kuo Kun-feng said separately.
The US Department of Agriculture (USDA) on March 28 said that it has no plans to regulate plants bred through genome editing techniques if the result could have been achieved through traditional breeding and “as long as [the genomes] are not from plant pests or developed using plant pests.”
Kuo said that council officials did not broach the issue of genome editing during their annual conference with USDA officials last month.
TENSIONS: The Chinese aircraft and vessels were headed toward the western Pacific to take part in a joint air and sea military exercise, the Ministry of National Defense said A relatively large number of Chinese military aircraft and vessels were detected in Taiwan’s vicinity yesterday morning, apparently en route to a Chinese military exercise in the western Pacific, the Ministry of National Defense (MND) said. In a statement, the ministry said 36 Chinese People’s Liberation Army (PLA) aircraft, including J-16 fighters and nuclear-capable H-6 bombers, crossed the median line of the Taiwan Strait or an extension of it, and were detected in the southern and southeastern parts of Taiwan’s air defense identification zone (ADIZ) from 5:20am to 9:30am yesterday. They were headed toward the western Pacific to take part in a
Honor guards are to stop performing changing of the guard ceremonies around a statue of Chiang Kai-shek (蔣介石) to avoid “worshiping authoritarianism,” the Ministry of Culture said yesterday. The fate of the bronze statue has long been the subject of fierce and polarizing debate in Taiwan, which has transformed from an autocracy under Chiang into one of Asia’s most vibrant democracies. The changing of the guard each hour at the Chiang Kai-shek Memorial Hall in Taipei is a major tourist attraction, but starting from 9am on Monday, the ceremony is to be moved outdoors to Democracy Boulevard, outside the eponymous blue-and-white memorial
The Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) supports peaceful unification with China, and President William Lai (賴清德) is “a bit naive” for being a “practical worker for Taiwanese independence,” former president Ma Ying-jeou (馬英九) said in an interview published yesterday. Asked about whether the KMT is on the same page as the Democratic Progressive Party (DPP) and the Taiwan People’s Party (TPP) on the issue of Taiwanese independence or unification with China, Ma told the Malaysian Chinese-language newspaper Sin Chew Daily that they are not. While the KMT supports peaceful unification and is against unification by force, the DPP opposes unification as such and
CASES SLOWING: Although weekly COVID-19 cases are rising, the growth rate has been falling, from 90 percent to 30 percent, 14 percent and 6 percent, the CDC said COVID-19 hospitalizations last week rose 6 percent to 987, while deaths soared 55 percent to 99, the Centers for Disease Control (CDC) said yesterday, adding that the recent wave of infections would likely peak this week. People aged 65 or older accounted for 79 percent of the hospitalizations and 90 percent of the deaths, the majority of whom have or had underlying health conditions, CDC data showed. The youngest hospitalized case last week was a six-month-old, who was born preterm and was unvaccinated, CDC physician Lin Yung-ching (林詠青) said. The infant had a fever, coughing and a runny nose early this month, but