Premier Sean Chen Apologizes to the Public Over Food Safety Issues

Premier Sean Chen Apologizes to the Public Over Food Safety Issues

Source: All Taipei Newspapers

March 15, 2012

The Ma administration has recently been forced to put out fires caused by a series of controversies over US beef imports containing ractopamine residue, an alleged cover-up by the Council of Agriculture (COA) of an outbreak of the H5N2 bird flu virus, and domestic pork products found to contain salbutamol. Premier Sean Chen (陳冲) yesterday granted an exclusive interview to TVBS and apologized to the public, saying frankly, "avian influenza caused public unease, speaking with candor, which was the last straw that broke the camel's back."     

Premier Sean Chen criticized the COA for its failure to promptly verify the influenza and order preventive culling, and its slow response. Fortunately, Chen Baoji(陳保基), the newly-appointed COA minister, ordered immediate preventive culling, a model for handling outbreaks, Chen stated.

Although Premier Sean Chen apologized to the public, Chen pointed his finger at the media several times, noting that the government had held three technical advisory group meetings, broadcasting the proceedings of the third meeting live, during which previous meeting conclusions had been revised. "However, unfortunately, local television stations decided not to televise the entire meeting. They had the live feed, but chose not to give it to their national audiences," Chen noted.

A TVBS public poll showed that almost seventy percent of surveyed respondents were unsatisfied with the government's handling of the US beef import issue. Sean Chen pointed out that people's dissatisfaction in the poll, conducted during reports of an alleged outbreak of avian influenza, reflected the overall impression of the government's handling of the cases, stressing that the government would enhance communication with the public. Sean Chen added that he also hoped the media would do its part to keep the public informed     

Premier Sean Chen went on to say that the public could never be over-informed, so the government would keep the public up-to-date, adding that the government had taken many positive measures last week, "but the news was not sensational enough, so the media gave it little coverage."

The Department of Health decided to conduct random lot-by-lot inspections of beef imports beginning next week. Premier Sean Chen stated that conducting random lot-by-lot inspections on all imported beef products would minimize the amount of banned products which slipped through, adding that after passing lot-by-lot border inspections, there would also be inspections in local markets. Sean Chen stressed that the division of labor between the central and local governments would be better in the future. In addition, the government would start erecting a food CV system.

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