Taiwan's Food and Drug Administration (FDA) confirmed on Wednesday that they detected 0.001ppm of Cimbuterol in a batch of Taiwan Sugar Corporation’s pork products. The products had been sent for retesting after the Taichung Health Bureau detected the banned leanness-enhancing agent in Taisugar’s plum pork slices last week. The Agriculture Ministry, Taiwan Sugar Corporation, and the FDA had previously been unable to detect the banned substance in the products.
The FDA says that 243 of the 2730 packets from the same batch of the contaminated product have already been recalled. Forty-four other pork products have also been tested. The FDA says that moving forward, inspections with local health bureaus will be strengthened. The original planned inspection of 2,000 products this year, will be increased to 4,000.
The Agriculture Ministry also announced that after an expanded inspection ranging from Taisugar pig farms to meat products around the country, no other detections of Cimbuterol were found. It added that citizens should not be discouraged from buying domestic pork products, as this is a single case and not a systemic problem.