An apparent food poisoning outbreak at a restaurant in Taipei that resulted in two sudden deaths and five people having to be treated in intensive care units has made headlines over the past few days. Investigations and testing confirmed it to be the first instance of bongkrek acid poisoning in Taiwan.
Bongkrek acid is a rare toxin produced by contamination with a bacterium, especially in fermented coconut or corn food products, and a mere milligram of the colorless and tasteless substance is deadly.
While specialists and officials are trying to identify the source of the deadly toxin, and prosecutors and police are collecting information and questioning restaurant personnel, it is a shame that some politicians and critics are quick to point fingers.
As of yesterday, 25 customers of Malaysian restaurant Polam Kopitiam (寶林茶室) in the food court of Taipei’s Far Eastern Department Store Xinyi A13 have reported falling ill after eating there — most of them ate a stir-fried flat rice noodle dish — between March 19 and last Sunday.
Two men died two days and a week, respectively, after eating at the restaurant, and five other people were hospitalized under intensive care.
The issue first grabbed public attention on Tuesday after the Taipei Department of Health received reports from three other hospitals about cases possibly linked to the restaurant, and an on-site inspection by Food and Drug Administration and Centers for Disease Control officials was conducted that day, while the restaurant franchise was ordered to suspend all operations.
With the help of healthcare professionals, public health experts and toxicologists, an impromptu meeting of specialists convened by the Ministry of Health and Welfare on Wednesday evening determined bongkrek acid to be the likely cause, and they later confirmed that blood from the dead and hospitalized people all tested positive for bongkrek acid, marking the first cases ever in Taiwan.
As the investigation progressed, a pan-blue camp local newspaper was quick to blame the central government led by the Democratic Progressive Party (DPP), publishing an editorial on Wednesday claiming that Taiwan is in a state of anarchy, as people can die from a meal at a food court and a foster child can die after being abused by a caregiver; while other pan-blue camp politicians blamed the central government for stepping in too late on Wednesday, when the first death occurred on Sunday.
DPP city councilors and legislators pointed their finger back at the Taipei City Government led by Mayor Chiang Wan-an (蔣萬安) of the Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT), accusing the city government of reporting the cases to the central government too late and passing the buck; while pan-green camp critics questioned Chiang’s ability to deal with food safety, child abuse and other public security problems.
However, the public is not interested in whether the central or the local government should apologize at this time, but is more eager to understand how the incident occurred and if it has affected other food products.
The answers can be better provided by the central and local governments working together efficiently and professionally.
In their New York Times bestseller How Democracies Die, Harvard political scientists Steven Levitsky and Daniel Ziblatt said that democracies today “may die at the hands not of generals but of elected leaders. Many government efforts to subvert democracy are ‘legal,’ in the sense that they are approved by the legislature or accepted by the courts. They may even be portrayed as efforts to improve democracy — making the judiciary more efficient, combating corruption, or cleaning up the electoral process.” Moreover, the two authors observe that those who denounce such legal threats to democracy are often “dismissed as exaggerating or
The Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) caucus in the Legislative Yuan has made an internal decision to freeze NT$1.8 billion (US$54.7 million) of the indigenous submarine project’s NT$2 billion budget. This means that up to 90 percent of the budget cannot be utilized. It would only be accessible if the legislature agrees to lift the freeze sometime in the future. However, for Taiwan to construct its own submarines, it must rely on foreign support for several key pieces of equipment and technology. These foreign supporters would also be forced to endure significant pressure, infiltration and influence from Beijing. In other words,
“I compare the Communist Party to my mother,” sings a student at a boarding school in a Tibetan region of China’s Qinghai province. “If faith has a color,” others at a different school sing, “it would surely be Chinese red.” In a major story for the New York Times this month, Chris Buckley wrote about the forced placement of hundreds of thousands of Tibetan children in boarding schools, where many suffer physical and psychological abuse. Separating these children from their families, the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) aims to substitute itself for their parents and for their religion. Buckley’s reporting is
Last week, the Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) and the Taiwan People’s Party (TPP), together holding more than half of the legislative seats, cut about NT$94 billion (US$2.85 billion) from the yearly budget. The cuts include 60 percent of the government’s advertising budget, 10 percent of administrative expenses, 3 percent of the military budget, and 60 percent of the international travel, overseas education and training allowances. In addition, the two parties have proposed freezing the budgets of many ministries and departments, including NT$1.8 billion from the Ministry of National Defense’s Indigenous Defense Submarine program — 90 percent of the program’s proposed
RSS