Academia Sinica, hospital rebut online blood rumor

RESEARCH:
Calling the rumor that Taiwan was helping the US develop a viral agent a work of absurd fiction, the hospital said it would file charges against the poster

• By Chiu Chih-ju, Wu Po-hsuan and Jonathan Chin / Staff reporters, with staff writer

Taipei Veterans General Hospital and Academia Sinica yesterday rebutted a rumor circulating online alleging that the blood of 1 million Taiwanese is being used by the US to create a viral agent to kill Chinese.

The hospital — which a viral post alleged had been allotted 150,000 blood samples by the Taiwan Precision Medicine Initiative to give to the US — said in a statement that there was no truth to the rumor and that it has initiated legal action to charge the person behind the post with defamation.

The Taiwan Precision Medicine Initiative is a large-scale genetic study being conducted jointly by a group of medical centers and Academia Sinica with the aim of identifying genetic risk factors linked to the nation’s most prevalent diseases, the hospital said.

It called the rumor a work of absurd fiction that negatively affected public health and harmed academic research, adding that the creator of the post clearly had malicious intent.

The hospital has reported the post to the police and demanded that the person behind the rumor retract the allegation and apologize, it said.

In a separate statement, Academia Sinica reiterated that the initiative was an effort to create a database of genetic materials to identify the genetic risk factors that lead to common medical conditions in Taiwan.

The initiative is being conducted in accordance with the Human Subjects Research Act (人體研究法) and monitored by the ethics committees of the medical institutes involved in the project, the state-run research institution said.

The project uses secure physical and digital storage for data and samples, it said, adding that no patient information or sample data had been leaked.

Police took receipt of the hospital’s complaint and an investigation was launched into the incident, the Taipei Police Department’s Beitou Precinct said yesterday.

The police are tracking down the rumor’s origin and its spread on social media, it added.

People who make or spread falsehoods could face legal consequences for libel and alarming the public without cause, it said.