Page 73 - 2017食品藥物管理署年報(英文版)

2017 Taiwan Food and Drug Administration Annual Report Chapter 5. Testing Technology and Capability

(3) Develop new testing technology to detect illegal products
A. TFDA has developed a testing method to analyze lutein levels in capsules/tablets
and subsequently tests 13 products on the market. The results showed that 6
products contain 80% lutein levels of the labeling, 3 of them even only contain
20% of the labeling, which have violated the regulations of Food Safety Act.
TFDA thereby issued a press release in June 2016 to ask food businesses involving
dietary supplement (in capsules/tablets) honestly publishing nutrition facts on
the product labeling to protection company reputations and ensure the rights and
interests of the consumers. Additionally, after the press release issued by TFDA,
the prosecutor’s office, Yunlin court actively tested related products and uncovered

unscrupulous businesses changing product expiration dates and selling expired
lutein products. The violator was prosecuted on July 12, 2016, and the unlawful
benefits were all confiscated . The test results are helpful to investigation conducted
by the prosecutor’s office and enhance the awareness of food quality of the fellow
citizens.
B. To respond to the requirements of management for adding illegal colorants, TFDA
establishes a new generation of food colorant detection method using HPLC-MS,

which enhances the testing accuracy and precision of current testing methods
from 8 food colorants to 46 colorants in Taiwan and thus greatly improve the
capacities as well as management efficiency of food testing in Taiwan. Such
testing approach has been applied to boarder inspections since 2016. Among 84
suspicious or hard-to-test import candies and cookies specimens, 9 samples were
found containing illegal colorants (e.g. Azorubine, Amaranth and Sulforhodamine
B) in Taiwan, thus successfully prohibited the import of violation products.

(4) TFDA developed species identification methods by molecular biotechnology for
the sake of effectively protecting public health and food safety
A. In December 2016, three people had symptoms of nausea, vomiting and
abdominal pain after eating wild mushrooms. TFDA received the rest
of wild mushrooms and conducted species identification developed by
molecular biotechnology. The data indicated that these wild mushrooms were
Chlorophyllum molybdites (Figure 5-6), which caused poisoning symptoms.
TFDA then issued a press release to educate the public not to consume unknown

mushrooms from the field.
B. Changhwa local health bureau reported a case of flyblown-like objects found
in chicken legs in lunch boxes in an elementary school. By DNA identification

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