Health officials warned on Monday that tableware made with melamine resin may release formaldehyde, a potential health hazard, under certain conditions.

"After conducting tests on 62 samples, 30 of them were confirmed to release formaldehyde when used for anything hot, watery or acidic," Husniah Rubiana Thamrin, head of the National Food and Drug Monitoring Agency (BPOM), said during a press conference.

Husniah said such products, most of them imported from China, included plates, bowls, spoons and forks. She said the BPOM did not intend to issue a blanket recall of the melamine resin products because they were relatively safe to use for some foods.

"People don't need to throw away all their melamine tableware because of this announcement," she said.

"They simply need to use it for different kinds of food, for dry food - or cookies, perhaps," she said.

Melamine resin has long been used as a construction material and a component of fire-resistant plastics. The melamine chemical on its own has been added illegally to some food products to boost measurements of protein content. Nearly 300,000 children fell ill last year after drinking milk laced with the chemical. But the dangers of this practice are separate from the formaldehyde-leeching properties associated with some products made with the resin.

Roland Hutapea, the BPOM's director for hazardous substance control, said long-term exposure to formaldehyde could cause kidney failure, bladder damage and cancer, and could eventually lead to death.

He said many food-grade melamine tableware items were perfectly safe to use, but consumers would not know how to find safe products because Indonesia lacked a labeling system to indicate whether a product was safe to use with food.

"The safest way for now, as we still have no way to guarantee product safety, is to avoid using any melamine [resin] tableware with heat, acid or water," he said.

Husniah said that without a lab test, it was almost impossible to differentiate safe tableware from products that might release formaldehyde.

The BPOM, she said, could not stop the public from using these products because they were legally imported with permits issued by the Ministry of Trade.

Husniah said the BPOM would immediately send a recommendation to the ministry urging a halt to the import of products that posed potential health risks, including melamine resin tableware.

Husniah said the BPOM would also pass on its findings to related ministries and request a special label to certify tableware safety.

Source:JakataGlobe