Pan Han-sheng, secretary-general of the Green Party, said the public's health will only be ensured if U.S. beef imports are banned from Taiwan.

Pan noted at a news conference held outside the Department of Health that although the Executive Yuan recently passed a draft bill governing the organic law of the Taiwan Food and Drug Administration (TFDA), in an effort to strengthen the safety of food and drugs, the bill will not ensure the safety of U.S. beef.

An alliance to fight against global warming also staged a skit, plastering a U.S. cattle doll with stickers that read "bovine spongiform encephalopathy (BSE)," "supervirus that is drug-resistant," and "growth hormones that could induce cancer."

The alliance said U.S. cattle is raised in a large-scale way and that the cereal fed to them could be polluted with chemicals, posing a greater threat to health than melamine-tainted milk products from China.

The alliance called for a boycott of U.S. beef, saying it will help safeguard public health and the environment, as well as ensure food safety.

Taiwan banned U.S. beef in 2003 when a case of BSE was diagnosed in Seattle. The ban was lifted in April 2005 to allow imports of U.S. de-boned beef from cattle aged under 30 months, but the Taiwan government re-imposed the ban two months later when a second BSE case was discovered in the United States.

The DOH lifted the ban on Jan. 25, 2006, but had to reinstate it four months later when bone fragments were discovered in a beef shipment.

Taiwan currently only allows boneless beef imports from cattle younger than 30 months of age, produced from certificated slaughterhouses and without high-risk items such as brains and spinal cord marrow.

The U.S. has called for Taiwan to fully open the market to its beef.