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Updated Wednesday, November 4, 2009 9:36 am TWN, The China Post news staff Law to ban beefIt also won consent from lawmakers to temporarily prohibit imports of these products from regions affected by mad cow disease before the legislative revision process is completed. Coordinated by DPP Chairwoman Tsai Ing-wen, the DPP lawmakers surrounded the seats of Legislative Yuan speaker and deputies from early morning to paralyze the meeting by voicing their opposition to the import of U.S. ground beef and internal organs. They demanded an amendment to the Food Hygiene Administration Law to include the skulls, brains, eyes, trigemial ganglions, spines, spinal ganglions, spinal marrow, and internal organs of cattle, ground beef and related products from areas possibly infected with mad cow disease into the category of foods that are banned from manufacturing, processing, packaging, storage, delivery, import/export, selling, and public display or to be used as giveaways in Taiwan. The DPP legislators also demanded a temporary ban on the importation of these products lawmakers before completing the law-revision procedure. The standoff forced the legislative caucus of the ruling Kuomintang to accept the DPP demands that afternoon. By the resolutions, the DPP proposal will directly come to the second reading by the lawmakers. KMT legislators said they will submit their own version of draft revision and continue coordinating with DPP colleagues. But they stressed the amendment legislation must be wrapped up before Nov. 17. DPP Chairwoman Tsai criticized the KMT administration for stalling the beef dispute with the U.S. with “technical trade barriers” while it possesses no ability of fully blocking the entry of the beef products with potential safety threats. The best way to solve the problem is to reopen negotiations with the U.S. and tighten the food hygiene regulations, she said. Frank Hsieh, a former premier and DPP chairman, showed the DPP tactic of using the beef issue to gain ballots in the local elections to be held next month. He called for voters' support for DPP candidates in the Dec. 5 elections. There will be a chance to reopen the beef trade talks with the U.S. as long as the DPP can pick up seven seats for municipal and county administrations, exhibiting the public opinions backing the DPP policies, he asserted. Legislative Yuan Speaker Wang Jin-pyng, who was prevented again from getting the legislative meetings from moving by the DPP boycott, said the DPP should not prolong the obstruction of the lawmakers' work after the parliament was idled for a whole week last week. He urged the DPP to demonstrate rationality and harmony when handling legislative matters after the executive branch has reached a new beef trade deal with the U.S. that will be augmented with thorough inspection operations for the people's safety. Subscribe to The China Post and save 25%. Click here Comments November 4, 2009 olsonandko@ Reply Mad cow disease is not a problem in the U.S. and has never been a problem. If there is an objection to bones and nervous tissue, don't import them. Rarely is good beef greater than 18 months old in the U.S., certainly not that consumed by the cattlemen who produce beef. Why not negotiate a 2 years age limit on all beef to eliminate all possibility of older possibly contaminated meat? November 4, 2009 paulmerich@ Do they really think US beef is less healthy than beef in Taiwanese local markets? I prefer to get my beef through an uninterrupted cool chain, from manufacturing to the store shelf. When I go to local markets, meat is always kept outside (even when temperatures exceed 32 degrees C) without refrigeration! November 4, 2009 Genuinememory@ US beef products should not be allowed into Taiwan, when there are better alternatives from Australia and New Zealand. November 5, 2009 ludahai_twn@ @Olsonandko - a 30-month age limit on imported cattle products was negotiated and meets the standards set by international regulations. The U.S. has had only two domestic cases of Mad Cow disease in the entire country -- none in the past 3 1/2 years. U.S. beef is safe. Those who say otherwise are merely spreading fear among a populace that is now aware of the science behind the thirty-month rule. U.S. beef falling under this rule is absolutely safe from mad cow. Sadly, this is a case of the Ma government making the right decision but handling it poorly and politicians from BOTH parties trying to make political hay out of public ignorance in the lead-up to next month's local elections -- where the KMT is looking at big losses despite its illegal actions to stem those losses in Taipei and Taichung. November 6, 2009 hlasny.j@ There is a fear about mad cow disease (BSE). However, the BSE disease is only believed to be linked to the human variant Creutzfeldt-Jakob disease (vCJD); see the number of cases of vCJD in the United Kingdom has decreased since 2000 to zero level in 2009 (http://www.cjd.ed.ac.uk/figures.htm). In addition, there will be no epidemic of the human form of mad cow disease in Britain, despite fears that the worst is yet to come, recently (September 2007) an expert said. We are "highly unlikely" to see a resurgence in the fatal brain condition, according to Professor Bob Will, director of the National CJD Surveillance Unit, who was speaking at a medical conference (PRION 2007) in Edinburgh (http://www.heraldscotland.com/epidemic-of-vcjd-in-uk-highly-unlikely-1.866012). The only way cattle are known to get the BSE; is by eating feed containing certain tissues from infected animals as meat and bone meal (MBM). However, WHY we found BSE positive animals – more years after a ban on using MBM in dairy rations? (see examples from Europe, Canada, Japan)? In addition, there is recent example (May 2009) from Czech Republic when the BSE was found in dairy cow born after the ?TOTAL ELIMINATION“ of MBM from the Czech feed industry (November 2003). So there is the evidence that MBM is not an origin about the BSE, and beef is safe in the all world. However, there is other nutritional and not infectious way; I think and believe there are not respected the recommendations about the dietary protein requirements in dairy cows. See these relationships, according to my recent presentation at 29th World Veterinary Congress in Vancouver; Neurodegenerative Diseases and Schizophrenia as a Hyper or Hypofunction of the NMDA Receptors (http://www.bse-expert.cz/pdf/Veter_kongres.pdf).Sincerely, Josef Hlasny, DVM,PhD., Czech Republic November 7, 2009 elumpen@ How about banning scooters? And SUVs? And one-eyed, criminal-record-as-long-as-your-arm, TV-watching taxi drivers? Give people something meaty to protest about: their right to die quickly and messily under the wheels of a badly-driven vehicle. |
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