Chiu Chui-chang (邱垂章), who takes over the reins at the Council of Agriculture’s Animal Health Research Institute (AHRI) today, has been accused of failing to report the spread of an avian flu virus when he was head of the Bureau of Animal and Plant Health Inspection and Quarantine’s (BAPHIQ) Keelung branch.
Chiu either failed to report to authorities the spread of H5N3 avian influenza in 2009 before an outbreak of the strain in 2013 or fabricated research, filmmaker Kevin Lee (李惠仁) told a news conference in Taipei yesterday, citing a paper that Chiu published in 2009 on an experiment he conducted using a strain of the H5N3 virus, which he claimed to have found at a chicken farm in Taiwan.
The paper, titled “Mucoadhesive liposomes for intranasal immunization with an avian influenza virus vaccine in chickens,” was published in Biomaterials in July 2009, but the Council of Agriculture’s records show that the virus was not found in Taiwan until 2013, the New Power Party (NPP) said in a statement, adding that the matter had been brought to its attention by an informant who had originally agreed to attend the news conference.
Photo: Huang Yao-cheng, Taipei Times
The research paper later evolved into Chiu’s doctoral thesis, which he completed in 2011 while serving as head of the Keelung branch, Lee said.
“The thesis says the virus was obtained from the AHRI, but its records show that the virus was not provided to either Chiu or Taipei Medical University [where he was studying]. Given that he was already head of BAPHIQ’s Keelung branch at the time, it raises serious questions if he cannot explain where the virus came from,” Lee added.
The allegation concerns Chiu’s integrity and whether he is qualified to serve as head of the AHRI, NPP Legislator Kawlo Iyun Pacidal said.
“Has Chiu committed academic misconduct? The council has denied providing him with H5N3 virus strains, so where did he obtain the virus? At which lab did he conduct the experiment? Did he fail to report the spreading of the virus to authorities? Or did he fabricate the research? These are questions we want Chiu to answer,” she said.
In a statement issued hours after the news conference, Chiu denied all allegations of academic misconduct and failing to report the virus.
The research used an inactivated H5N3 virus provided by the AHRI, as described in the paper’s published abstract, he said.
The sentence in the paper that says the virus came from a chicken farm is an error and the journal would be asked to correct it, he added.
Some people have chosen to spread lies about him on the eve of his promotion as AHRI head, he said, adding that he reserves the right to press charges.
Former Czech Republic-based Taiwanese researcher Cheng Yu-chin (鄭宇欽) has been sentenced to seven years in prison on espionage-related charges, China’s Ministry of State Security announced yesterday. China said Cheng was a spy for Taiwan who “masqueraded as a professor” and that he was previously an assistant to former Cabinet secretary-general Cho Jung-tai (卓榮泰). President-elect William Lai (賴清德) on Wednesday last week announced Cho would be his premier when Lai is inaugurated next month. Today is China’s “National Security Education Day.” The Chinese ministry yesterday released a video online showing arrests over the past 10 years of people alleged to be
THE HAWAII FACTOR: While a 1965 opinion said an attack on Hawaii would not trigger Article 5, the text of the treaty suggests the state is covered, the report says NATO could be drawn into a conflict in the Taiwan Strait if Chinese forces attacked the US mainland or Hawaii, a NATO Defense College report published on Monday says. The report, written by James Lee, an assistant research fellow at Academia Sinica’s Institute of European and American Studies, states that under certain conditions a Taiwan contingency could trigger Article 5 of NATO, under which an attack against any member of the alliance is considered an attack against all members, necessitating a response. Article 6 of the North Atlantic Treaty specifies that an armed attack in the territory of any member in Europe,
LIKE FAMILY: People now treat dogs and cats as family members. They receive the same medical treatments and tests as humans do, a veterinary association official said The number of pet dogs and cats in Taiwan has officially outnumbered the number of human newborns last year, data from the Ministry of Agriculture’s pet registration information system showed. As of last year, Taiwan had 94,544 registered pet dogs and 137,652 pet cats, the data showed. By contrast, 135,571 babies were born last year. Demand for medical care for pet animals has also risen. As of Feb. 29, there were 5,773 veterinarians in Taiwan, 3,993 of whom were for pet animals, statistics from the Animal and Plant Health Inspection Agency showed. In 2022, the nation had 3,077 pediatricians. As of last
XINJIANG: Officials are conducting a report into amending an existing law or to enact a special law to prohibit goods using forced labor Taiwan is mulling an amendment prohibiting the importation of goods using forced labor, similar to the Uyghur Forced Labor Prevention Act (UFLPA) passed by the US Congress in 2021 that imposed limits on goods produced using forced labor in China’s Xinjiang region. A government official who wished to remain anonymous said yesterday that as the US customs law explicitly prohibits the importation of goods made using forced labor, in 2021 it passed the specialized UFLPA to limit the importation of cotton and other goods from China’s Xinjiang Uyghur region. Taiwan does not have the legal basis to prohibit the importation of goods