Control Yuan faults Taipei City gov't for mishandling of Polam Kopitiam case

Taipei, Jan. 22 (CNA) Taiwan's top government watchdog body on Wednesday ordered corrective measures be taken by Taipei City government, citing a lack of vigilance in managing the Polam Kopitiam food poisoning incident which caused six deaths last year, and an ability to identify the source of the pathogen.

The food poisoning case, which occurred in late March last year, resulted in 33 reported illnesses -- including six individuals who later died -- after dining at the Xinyi branch of the Malaysian restaurant chain Polam Kopitiam in Taipei, according to the Taipei District Prosecutors Office.

Five individuals connected to Polam Kopitiam, including the owner and chefs of the restaurant, were indicted for negligent homicide on Tuesday by the prosecutors office.

Three Control Yuan members, including Wang Yu-ling (王幼玲), previously proposed corrective measures against the Taipei City government -- one of the agencies responsible for handling the food poisoning incident -- that were approved on Wednesday by the Control Yuan's Committee on Social Welfare and Environmental Hygiene Affairs.

Wang said that after the city government received notification from its counterpart in New Taipei at noon on March 24 regarding two suspected food poisoning cases -- one involving a hospitalized patient in shock -- it took five hours for the inspectors to arrive at the Xinyi branch and they failed to implement preventive measures, such as recalling or retaining food items.

That delay allowed eight additional customers to dine at the restaurant that day, all of whom later developed symptoms of food poisoning, Wang added.

She also pointed out that the city government's health bureau has established guidelines that clearly require inspectors to sample items such as suspected food and leftovers related to food poisoning incidents.

However, during two on-site inspections, inspectors from the city government only sampled environmental specimens at the restaurant, such as the chefs' hand swabs and kitchen tools, despite reports of abnormal bitterness and sourness in the fried flat rice noodles, as well as the hospitalization and death of previous diners, Wang said.

Flat rice noodles were a key ingredient in the dishes consumed by all the victims in the case.

The inspectors' failure to collect food samples during the critical window for analysis has led to the source of the pathogen that caused the food poisoning -- the bacterium Burkholderia gladioli -- remaining undetermined, she added.

Burkholderia gladioli can produce bongkrekic acid, a rare and deadly toxin detected in all victims of the food poisoning incident.

Meanwhile, the Taipei health bureau issued a news release later on Wednesday in response to the Control Yuan's corrective measures, saying its inspectors immediately inspected the restaurant after receiving notification from its counterpart in New Taipei at 12:42 p.m. on March 24.

"The inspection was completed at around 5 p.m. the same day, and a work report was promptly drafted, therefore there was no delay in the inspection process," the statement read.

The health bureau added that during a follow-up inspection on March 25, one of the chefs falsely claimed to inspectors that all flat rice noodles had been properly refrigerated.

However, the prosecutors' office later discovered that the noodles had been stored on the bottom shelf of a kitchen table at room temperature after the package was opened.

"The business operator's deliberate concealment and false statements caused frontline personnel to work tirelessly day and night to uncover the truth," the bureau said, adding that it will impose an additional fine of NT$3 million (US$91,672) on the business operator due to its violation of the Act Governing Food Safety and Sanitation.