The actions taken by the competent authority in the governing of food safety and sanitation shall base on risk assessment and shall align with satisfying the citizens’right to have healthy and safe food and the right to know, as well as the principles of scientific evidence, precaution, and information transparency. The competent authority shall establish a risk assessment and advisory system.
For the risk assessment mentioned in the preceding paragraph, the central competent authority shall assemble experts and scholars specialized in food safety, toxicology, risk assessment, and etc., as well as non-governmental organizations, to form a food risk assessment advisory committee. Each gender shall not be less than one-third of the total number of the committee members.
The advisory system in Paragraph 1 shall refer to a council advisory committee comprising of experts and scholars specializing in food safety, nutrition, medicine, toxicology, risk management, agriculture, law, and humanities and social science to facilitate regulation of food sanitation and safety, nutrition, genetically modified foods, food advertising and labeling, and food testing methods. Each gender shall not be less than one-third of the total number of the committee members.
The members of the committee shall abide by the recusal regulation of Article 32 of the Administrative Procedure Act. The regulations governing the formation, proceedings, procedures, scope and other matters to be complied with for such council advisory committee shall be prescribed by the central competent authority.
Whenever necessary, the central competent authority may take the following actions on specified products and products from specified areas on the basis of the precautionary principle, the risk assessment or the epidemiological survey result when a significant or an unexpected food safety incident occurs:
1.to suspend import, manufacturing and processing of the specified products or products from specified areas, or to conduct control measures and requirements to restrict the import, manufacturing and processing of the specified products or products from specified areas.
2.to withdraw from the market, seal the products, recall within a prescribed time period, recondition within a prescribed time period, confiscate and destroy.

The competent authority at all levels shall establish a food sanitation and safety monitoring system based on scientific evidence. Upon discovery of incidents that may be harmful to food sanitation and safety during monitoring, an active inspection shall be conducted and an alert shall be issued or other necessary measures shall be implemented.
The issuance of the active inspection and alert or implementation of necessary measures referred to in the preceding paragraph which will be done by the competent authority shall include conducting sampling and testing, investigating the source of raw material and the flow of the product, publishing testing results, disclosing other relevant information and ordering food businesses to perform testing on their own.

The competent authority at all levels shall establish a reporting system, distinguishing poisoning caused by either food or infections, to be under the jurisdiction of either the Food and Drug Administration, Ministry of Health and Welfare or Centers for Disease Control, Ministry of Health and Welfare, and to collect and handle the reporting of suspicious food poisoning incidents.
Upon diagnosing a patient suspected of food poisoning, a medical institution shall report to the local competent authority within 24 hours.