Minister slammed for baby formula statement

A legislator says Health Minister Endang Sedyaningsih's statements on the contaminated baby formula scandal show lack of sympathy for regular people.

“The minister opted to inform the baby formula producers about the problematic products instead of consumers. This clearly tells us which side the minister is on,” Rieke Dyah Pitaloka, a legislator from the Indonesian Democratic Party of Struggle (PDI-P), said on Friday as

quoted by tribunnews.com.

Rieke said she would push House Commission IX overseeing health to ask the government to publicly announce the specific brands of contaminated formula previously discovered by university researchers who protested the disclosure, citing confidentiality concerns.

“That is what the Supreme Court has been telling the government to do all along: Announce the contaminated baby formula products to the public,” she said.

Health Minister Endang Sedyaningsih recently said samples taken from 47 brands of baby showed no signs of contamination by Enterobacter sakazakii bacteria, contradicting a report issued by the Bogor Agricultural University (IPB) that found evidence of contamination in

many brands of baby formula.