DOH plans round of beef, pork and fowl inspections

The Department of Health (DOH, 衛生署) said it is planning a fresh round of ractopamine testing on beef, pork, duck, and geese products on the Taiwan market.    Starting March 20, the DOH starts up inspection of 1,000 meat products: 500 articles of beef, 400 articles of pork, and 100 articles of duck and geese products.   All 22 cities and county governments have agreed to continue regular checks and to cooperate in an additional island-wide inspections, said DOH Minister Chiu Wen-ta (邱文達) after meeting with heads of local health bureaus yesterday.   Health authorities will take products from grocery stores, hypermarts, traditional markets, and restaurants, according to Pan Jyh-quan (潘志寬) of the DOH's Food and Drug Division.   Labs will test for ractopamine and other banned beta-agonists. Products that violate current food-safety regulations will be posted publicly.  

Lot-by-lot Protocol: Vice Premier   Meanwhile, a new Executive Yuan committee for food safety set the protocol of an upgrade to border inspections.   The DOH said Thursday that lot-by-lot inspections on beef imports may begin as early as next Monday.   Lot-by-lot inspections won't apply to all beef shipments, said Vice Premier Jiang Yi-huah (江宜樺) at the Legislative Yuan yesterday.   Lot-by-lot applies only to imports from countries that have previous violations on record.   Under the lot-by-lot policy, five consecutive batches must pass inspection under a 100-percent sampling rate. After that, sampling is dialed down to a rate of 20 percent. If another five consecutive batches pass inspection at the 20-percent rate, sampling falls back to 5 percent.   Jiang stressed that "the net does have holes," as lot-by-lot is not piece-by-piece inspection.   For countries with no record of food-safety violations, sampling remains at the original rate of 5 percent, he said.   Jiang is leading the committee for food safety, which the Executive Yuan announced Thursday. The unit is charged with oversight with beef-import inspection and with otherwise restoring public confidence in food safety.  

Five Principles   Jiang told reporters that the inter-departmental committee set five principles for inspections: rigor, transparency, increased penalties, practicality and expanded participation.   The task force is negotiating to include the Council of Agriculture, consumer protection groups and other professionals in the inspection process, according to Jiang.   

Unusual Practice, Unusual Times   The step up from a 5-percent to a 100-percent check is an "unusual practice for unusual times," Jiang continued.   The measure is quite rare in the international community and may trouble trade relations with other WTO members, he said.   To eliminate snags on the global stage, Jiang said he has asked the Ministry of Economic Affairs to begin communicating with foreign companies.   He also asked the DOH to assess the manpower and budgetary needs of the new inspection policy.   Jiang said that next week he will review the new lot-by-lot checks on-site.