Ma announces huge operation on food safety
President Ma Ying-jeou said yesterday (June 8)that government health units have launched the nation's largest-ever action to secure food safety by checking up to 16,000 food makers and outlets and removing from sales stands over 20,000 food and beverage items suspected of being contaminated with toxic plasticizer DEHP.
Ma said the large-scale investigation campaign came after over 900 food and beverage products, supplied by more than 400 mid- and downstream food and beverage companies, were suspected to be contaminated with DEHP.
Ma made the remarks when meeting with Cabinet officials in a national security meeting to plan the next moves to halt the worsening food scare in Taiwan.
He continued that the meeting was held to review the investigation's actions and results, publicize the entire campaign process, and to seek effective measures to prevent the recurrence of similar food safety incidents.
The meeting came a day after the Department of Health recommended that hospitals temporarily stop dispensing an antibiotic that was found to contain a plasticizer.
The announcement on Tuesday of the presence of the chemical in the drug was the latest development in the food scare that has rocked the nation since mid-May.
The classification of yesterday's meeting meant that the crisis has been raised to the presidential level, one week after the May 31 D-Day deadline officials had set for manufacturers and vendors to stop distributing potentially tainted food and drink.
However, more cases of contami! nation h ave surfaced since D-Day, including the prescription drug on Tuesday.
Premier Wu Den-yih said ahead of the meeting that the Cabinet had been in charge of the response to the crisis, holding cross-ministry meetings daily.
He apologized to the nation for the government's failure to monitor food safety and promised to give a report on the crisis to the Legislative Yuan, if lawmakers require him to do so.
The premier also vowed to crack down on the illegal use of plasticizers in food. He said the crackdown would be similar to 1839 China when the Ching Dynasty general, Lin Tse-hsu seized and burned opium from the West.
The premier dismissed criticism that D-Day had failed to contain the crisis.
He said that when the government was first alerted to the contamination, it decided to make concerted efforts to root out the problem. The crisis began when health authorities detected DEHP in clouding agents from Yu Shen Chemical Co., a supplier.
It was expected that the scope of the crisis would turn out to be immense as the investigation went on, he said.
However, while a plasticizer has been found in Augmentin, an antibiotic produced by GlaxoSmithKline, health authorities have not banned the drug.
They have instead asked the pharmaceutical company to see whether it is advisable to remove the product from the market before toxicologists complete a report on its health risks.
The authorities have also demanded that the company produce proof that the drug was not contaminated during the manufacturing process.
The food scare has also prompted the Environmental Protection Administration (EPA) to seek to tighten controls on the use of plasticizers.
EPA Minister Stephen Shen said his administration will officially announce in a couple of days a plan to reclassify and restrict the use of toxic, phthalate-based plasticizers, including DEHP.
The EPA will hold hearings, begi! nning pr obably two weeks after the announcement, to gauge public opinions before finalizing the plan, Shen said.
According to the EPA, phthalates are a class of chemicals that are mainly used as plasticizers for plastic products. These chemicals include DBP, DMP, DOP, DEHP, DINP, BBP, DIDP and DEP.
Currently, DOP is categorized as a Class 1 substance, the highest level in Taiwan's four-tier toxic classification system. DBP, DEHP and DMP are Class 4 substances. The others in the phthalates family are not classified.
However, the EPA is now planning to list DMP, DOP, DINP, DIDP and DEP as Class 1, with DBP, DEHP and BBP to be under both Class 1 and Class 2, according to the Central News Agency.
All other types of non-phthalate plasticizers will be listed as Class 4, according to the EPA's initial plan.
Shen said the classification is mainly based on the Toxic Chemical Substances Control Act that is aimed at preventing industrial toxic substances from polluting the environment.
Government agencies will also strengthen their coordination in the future to block the use of the toxic chemicals in end products such as food, toys and agricultural pesticides, he said.
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