The circus continues

Just to catch you up on some of the latest goings on...

It looks like the U.S. beef imports circus is going to continue. After a dancing donkey and poodle act, it appears the issue will go to a referendum. The only thing more ridiculous than letting the beef industry sway U.S. foreign policy, is the idea that the average Taiwanese person is informed enough to decide Taiwan's domestic policy. While the ruling KMT has used the beef debacle to give a thorough demonstration of their ineptness, the opposition DPP has proven to be merely vacuous and opportunistic. Along with pushing for the referendum and the cost and distraction it would entail, they were quick to point out that it should be held during other elections to ensure the minimum turnout is achieved. In other words, they know nobody cares enough about this issue to actually turn up and vote on it.

On the other side of the coin, the New York Times recently published an article exposing the questionable practices used by the U.S. beef industry in hamburger processing. In recent years processed hamburger has included a product that is created from 'fatty trimmings' that in the past were not considered safe enough to be allowed for human consumption and were only used in pet foods. This 'jelly' is created from the eyes, tonsils, ganglia and other undesirable parts of the cow. These 'trimmings' are highly prone to ecoli and salmonella contamination. A company called Beef Products inc. came up with a novel method whereby the jelly created from these parts is gassed with ammonia to kill the bacteria. The USDA allowed this product to be included in hamburger based only on the findings of studies funded by the company in question. For some reason, ammonia is not listed as an ingredient, despite the fact that handlers of this product have detected a strong odor of ammonia emanating from the jelly even when frozen and have returned the product as unfit for consumption. On top of this, contamination has been detected on several occasions in their product and large-scale outbreaks of food poisoning have been linked to it as well. Several scientists working for the USDA were in disagreement of their employer's decision to approve the product.

Carl S. Custer, a former U.S.D.A. microbiologist, said he and other scientists were concerned that the department had approved the treated beef for sale without obtaining independent validation of the potential safety risk. Another department microbiologist, Gerald Zirnstein, called the processed beef "pink slime" in a 2002 e-mail message to colleagues and said, “I do not consider the stuff to be ground beef, and I consider allowing it in ground beef to be a form of fraudulent labeling.”

This product is used in the hamburger of fast food chains like McDonald's and Burger King. It is also used in the school lunch program in the U.S. as it reduces their hamburger budget by a million dollars a year.

And while we happen to be on the issue of the U.S. school lunch program. This article from Washington Monthly outlines the kind of questionable practices that are carried out by this program under the approval of the USDA. KFC and Subway are allowed to set up shop in schools throughout the country, while the quality of meals produced by the program itself is equally unhealthy. Revenue from soda and junk food vending machines now provides a vital portion of funding for most schools. State governments also benefit from the sale of these products in schools as most have now instituted a tax on sugared beverages based on the logic that they are unhealthy. The Donkey went on a rant about this obvious hypocritical conflict of interest in an earlier post.

But to return to the circus in Taiwan, the U.S. government has recently shown they will not let offal interfere with their geopolitical agenda by approving the sale of 'Patriot' missiles to Taiwan by Lockheed Martin. The missiles could theoretically be used to shoot down short-range missiles launched against Taiwan by China. I guess we should be thankful that the interests of Lockheed Martin balance out the interests of Beef Products Inc. in the U.S. Congress. I feel safer already.

Several real problems with food in Taiwan

Source: Taipei Times: Nicky Loh Reuters

The Taipei Times reports that several thousand demonstrators marched to the President's office yesterday to protest the lifting of the ban on the import of American beef products. Never mind that no one has ever contracted mad cow disease from American beef, or that the protests have been organized by Taiwan cattle breeders who stand to gain economically from the ban, or that the opposition DPP has whipped the public into a frenzy over the issue simply to attack the government.

Don't get me wrong, I love the inflatable triple-coiler turd. But if people in Taiwan are looking for things to protest, here is a list of food related issues they should be more concerned about than U.S. beef.

1.
9000 ducks were recently destroyed on a farm near Kaohsiung located on an illegal slag dump. All of the birds on the farm were contaminated with high levels of doixins and heavy metals. Ducks from this farm have likely been sold to consumers since 2006. Environmentalists point out that many more contaminated sites exist in the country and that the farm was only discovered by chance.

2.
Over 50% of processed food for vegetarians sold in markets in Taiwan contains meat

3.
Oysters farmed in Taiwan are known to have high levels of Arsenic and PCBs. Contamination is likely to increase with the planned construction of a massive industrial park near oyster producing regions. They are also known to be heavily contaminated with the vibrio vulnificus virus due to sewage pollution leading to wide-spread outbreaks of food poisoning. These oysters continue to be served raw throughout the country.

4.
Tainted Dog Food Kills hundreds of dogs in Taiwan


5.
High levels of Dioxins found in Fish Farms in Taiwan


6.
Contaminated food products entering Taiwan from China

7.
Contaminated corn and corn based feeds prevalent in Taiwan

The Great Debate on Yankee Brains and Spinal Cords

Whoops, I guess we haven't mentioned anything to do with Taiwan in about 30 posts. How about this from an article in the October 28th edition of the Taipei Times:

Source: Taipei Times

Under the terms of the new accord, US bone-in beef, ground beef, intestines, brains, spinal cords and processed beef from cattle younger than 30 months that have not been contaminated with “specific risk materials” will be allowed to enter Taiwan starting on Nov. 10.

At present, Taiwan allows imports of US boneless beef from cattle younger than 30 months that do not contain “specific risk materials.”

[Taiwan (AIT) Director William Stanton] said yesterday that 1,034 people out of 23 million Taiwanese lost their lives in scooter accidents last year.

“So when you look at the risk, statistically, [in contrast to] no cases of mad cow disease [reported in the US], well, one might conclude that one should stop driving motor scooters because of the risk [of the accidents],” he said.'

Of course I'm excited to be able to once again tuck into a nice steaming bowl of Yankee spinal cord (recipe to follow). But in truth, I take no stand on the matter of whether to allow these products into Taiwan or not. I tend not to consider my risk of contracting Creutzfeldt-Jacob disease when I eat a hamburger. Clearly, the vast majority of those protesting the import of these products have some economic stake in keeping them out, and as such, should be taken with a grain of salt. I also have no doubt that Taiwanese beef, in one way or another, poses equal or greater risks to my health than its American counterpart. What I find interesting in the article though, is the rhetorical idiocy of the Director of the American Institute in Taiwan (AIT), William Stanton. Check out his air-tight logic that people die on scooters, and Taiwan doesn't ban them, so what business do they have banning American brains and spinal cords.

Ya right, cow brains and scooters ... pretty much the same thing. Guess we'd better let them in. Of course he could have extended his arguments to cars and roads in general, which are also the cause of multiple deaths in the country. How about fatty foods, surely they raise the mortality rate as well. If we allow those, we'd better send in the brains. As far as that goes, since the government of Taiwan allows scooters to wreak carnage on the population, I guess there's really no argument for banning any product based on safety concerns. Let's bring back lead paint, asbestos, and all those toys from the seventies with the temptingly swallowable little pieces.

Keep in mind that AIT is the de facto U.S. embassy in Taiwan. And this nonsensical logic comes from the de facto American Ambassador. I'm curious as to what exactly are the qualifications for this position.  Stanton was the deputy chief of mission at the US embassy in South Korea, and before that worked for the U.S. State Department in Beijing. He has only held the position of Director of AIT since March 2009. Check out this post about Stanton from The View from Taiwan and the associated article from the Taipei Times. Apparently, not only is he less than Platoesque in his logic, he has also been accused of being 'excessively pro-China' in his views. According to the unnamed sources from The Taipei Times, Stanton, during his time in Beijing, exhibited a pattern of impeding or blocking negative reports on China from being sent back to Washington.

So the questions arise, 'Who is William Stanton and why is he here?'