Saturday, March 24, 2012

CDC Annexes Taiwan to China

The map at left there is the CDC map of Taiwan which has the erroneous (China) note under the name TAIWAN from their travel recommendations page for Taiwan.

There is absolutely no need for this kind of error, since the CDC is well aware Taiwan is not part of China and lists the island separately on its pages for individual diseases and separately in the drop-down menu for the customer satisfaction survey that may appear when you access the site. For example, the page on Japanese Encephalitis, a dangerous disease which your children should be vaccinated for has separate entries for Taiwan and China.

The CDC is a US government agency and should follow US government policy, which is that Taiwan's status is undetermined.

The CDC does have a disclaimer:
The boundaries and names shown and the designations used on maps do not imply the expression of any opinion whatsoever on the part of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention concerning the legal status of any country, territory, city or area or of its authorities, or concerning the delimitation of its frontiers or boundaries.
Sure, the disclaimer may say that the CDC takes no position, but if you write (China) under the name Taiwan when that status is disputed, you've taken a position. Drop them a polite line; if they survey you when you enter the website, leave a message on the bottom of the survey too. It's confusing to have the China notices mixed up with Taiwan; it leaves they impression that Taiwan has China's health issues. Contact page for the website is here.
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5 comments:

Anonymous said...

The Canadian Broadcasting Corporation website CBC.ca doesn't even list Taiwan on its sign up page. That's even worse than "Taiwan, China" or some other anti-Taiwan formulation.

Unknown said...

I have had the same experience with the cbc.ca page, Anonymous. Commenters cannot even leave comments if they are in this "non-existent" country.

skiingkow said...

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Done.
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Anonymous said...

Sent my comment to CDC, citing the following: US Secretary of Health and Human Services Kathleen Sebelius said on May 17, 2011 that no UN agency has the right to unilaterally determine Taiwan’s status. See
http://www.taipeitimes.com/News/taiwan/archives/2011/05/18/2003503530

Anonymous said...

Got an email from the CDC requesting the web link with the wrong informatoin. Just checked and found the mistake had been corrected.