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進入《TAIPEI TIMES》Original pork sample tests positive
Taichung Health Bureau Director Tseng Tzu-chan, right, speaks at a news conference in the city. Photo: CNA
ISOLATED INCIDENT? As tests of 337 specimens for cimbuterol in other places were negative, it does not seem to be a systematic problem, the Cabinet said
By Lee I-chia / Staff reporter
The Food and Drug Administration （FDA） and the Taichung Health Bureau yesterday announced that retests of specimens from the original pack of Taiwan Sugar Corp （Taisugar, 台糖） pork product that last week tested positive for cimbuterol again turned out positive for the illegal leanness-enhancing substance.
The bureau on Friday last week said that a random inspection of pork products sold in the city detected traces of cimbuterol, a banned beta-agonist, at 0.002 parts per million （ppm）, in a pack of Taisugar’s frozen “sliced pork butt.”
The announcement led to prompt and wide inspections of Taisugar’s pig farms, slaughterhouse and factory, as well as multiple tests for traces of beta-agonists in animal feeds, pig blood serum, pig hair and specimens from Taisugar’s pork products, including from the same batch of products, by the company, as well as the central and local governments.
However, all the tests came back negative for cimbuterol or other beta-agonists, raising questions about the accuracy of the original test result.
As Taisugar applied to the bureau for a retest and the FDA offered its assistance, the bureau on Tuesday sent one of the two remaining specimens from the original pack of pork product to the FDA for testing, while it conducted a retest of the last specimen.
FDA Director Wu Hsiu-mei （吳秀梅） yesterday said that its tests came back positive for cimbuterol, with a concentration level of 0.001ppm.
Taichung Health Bureau Director Tseng Tzu-chan （曾梓展） said that its retest, with representatives from the FDA, the city government, Taisugar and an outside expert in attendance, still came back positive for cimbuterol at 0.002ppm.
Separately, Executive Yuan spokesman Lin Tze-luen （林子倫） told a news conference that tests of 337 specimens by various agencies in multiple cities and counties all came back negative for beta-agonists, so the contamination must be an isolated incident and not a systematic problem.
Nonetheless, the government will continue its investigation to trace the source of the banned substance, Lins aid.
Acting Minister of Agriculture Chen Junne-jih （陳駿季） said that seven pork samples from the same batch of “sliced pork butt” product and 298 other samples from pig farms all tested negative.
While there has been speculation that the problematic specimen might have been mixed with imported pork, pig farms in other countries do not use cimbuterol either, Lin said, adding that all imported pork products are inspected batch-by-batch.
“There is actually no commercial product that uses cimbuterol as a feed additive,” Executive Yuan Office of Food Safety Director Hsu Fu （許輔） said. “It is only used in laboratories as a reference standard for test analysis, as it is expensive, costing more than NT$1 million （US$31,890） per gram.”
There are 20 FDA-certified laboratories — 10 local health departments and 10 private ones — that have the substance, so the government will continue to trace whether it was leaked from those labs, he said.
The Ministry of Health and Welfare is to set up a specialists task force to investigate the contamination source, he added.
Wu said that as less than 0.5g of cimbuterol was imported last year for laboratory tests, the administration will ask the Taichung Office of Food and Drug Safety to provide information on the last allocation of the substance.
She added that the FDA would double its planned tests of pork samples for beta-agonists this year to 4,000.
Asked if Taisugar might be fined for failing the retest, Wu said that according to the Act Governing Food Sanitation （食品衛生管理法）, the Taichung Health Bureau can fine the company.
However, Deputy Minister of Economic Affairs Tseng Wen-sheng （曾文生） said that cimbuterol is not used for animal drugs or as a feed additive, but is a rare drug, and that the concentration levels detected were fairly low and was not detected at all in other specimens from the same batch of pork products.
“Would you be convinced and willingly accept the fine if you were the company [Taisugar]”? he asked, adding that there should be more concrete proof before punishment is imposed.
He expressed hope that testing and law enforcement procedures would be carried out more carefully, so that the public can obtain more accurate information.
新聞來源：TAIPEI TIMES
