Taipei Veterans General Hospital and Academia Sinica yesterday rebutted a rumor circulating online alleging that the blood of 1 million Taiwanese is being used by the US to create a viral agent to kill Chinese.
The hospital — which a viral post alleged had been allotted 150,000 blood samples by the Taiwan Precision Medicine Initiative to give to the US — said in a statement that there was no truth to the rumor and that it has initiated legal action to charge the person behind the post with defamation.
The Taiwan Precision Medicine Initiative is a large-scale genetic study being conducted jointly by a group of medical centers and Academia Sinica with the aim of identifying genetic risk factors linked to the nation’s most prevalent diseases, the hospital said.
Photo: Screen grab from the Taiwan Precision Medicine Initiative’s Web site
It called the rumor a work of absurd fiction that negatively affected public health and harmed academic research, adding that the creator of the post clearly had malicious intent.
The hospital has reported the post to the police and demanded that the person behind the rumor retract the allegation and apologize, it said.
In a separate statement, Academia Sinica reiterated that the initiative was an effort to create a database of genetic materials to identify the genetic risk factors that lead to common medical conditions in Taiwan.
The initiative is being conducted in accordance with the Human Subjects Research Act (人體研究法) and monitored by the ethics committees of the medical institutes involved in the project, the state-run research institution said.
The project uses secure physical and digital storage for data and samples, it said, adding that no patient information or sample data had been leaked.
Police took receipt of the hospital’s complaint and an investigation was launched into the incident, the Taipei Police Department’s Beitou Precinct said yesterday.
The police are tracking down the rumor’s origin and its spread on social media, it added.
People who make or spread falsehoods could face legal consequences for libel and alarming the public without cause, it said.
CAUTION: Based on intelligence from the nation’s security agencies, MOFA has cautioned Taiwanese travelers about heightened safety risks in China-friendly countries The Ministry of Foreign Affairs (MOFA) yesterday urged Taiwanese to be aware of their safety when traveling abroad, especially in countries that are friendly to China. China in June last year issued 22 guidelines that allow its courts to try in absentia and sentence to death so-called “diehard” Taiwanese independence activists, even though Chinese courts have no jurisdiction in Taiwan. Late last month, a senior Chinese official gave closed-door instructions to state security units to implement the guidelines in countries friendly to China, a government memo and a senior Taiwan security official said, based on information gathered by Taiwan’s intelligence agency. The
The National Immigration Agency (NIA) said yesterday that it will revoke the dependent-based residence permit of a Chinese social media influencer who reportedly “openly advocated for [China’s] unification through military force” with Taiwan. The Chinese national, identified by her surname Liu (劉), will have her residence permit revoked in accordance with Article 14 of the “Measures for the permission of family- based residence, long-term residence and settlement of people from the Mainland Area in the Taiwan Area,” the NIA said in a news release. The agency explained it received reports that Liu made “unifying Taiwan through military force” statements on her online
Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co (TSMC), the world’s largest contract chipmaker, said yesterday that it is looking to hire 8,000 people this year, at a time when the tech giant is expanding production capacity to maintain its lead over competitors. To attract talent, TSMC would launch a large-scale recruitment campaign on campuses across Taiwan, where a newly recruited engineer with a master’s degree could expect to receive an average salary of NT$2.2 million (US$60,912), which is much higher than the 2023 national average of NT$709,000 for those in the same category, according to government statistics. TSMC, which accounted for more than 60 percent
Tung Tzu-hsien (童子賢), a Taiwanese businessman and deputy convener of the nation’s National Climate Change Committee, said yesterday that “electrical power is national power” and nuclear energy is “very important to Taiwan.” Tung made the remarks, suggesting that his views do not align with the country’s current official policy of phasing out nuclear energy, at a forum organized by the Taiwan People’s Party titled “Challenges and Prospects of Taiwan’s AI Industry and Energy Policy.” “Taiwan is currently pursuing industries with high added- value and is developing vigorously, and this all requires electricity,” said the chairman
RSS