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The Health Ministry announced on Thursday it would carry out tests on formula milk samples to allay public fears about bacterial contamination.

Health Minister Endang Rahayu Sedyaningsih said her office’s research and development agency would work with the Food and Drug Monitoring Agency (BPOM) to test “all brands of baby formula milk out in the market.”

She said that since 2009, the BPOM had regularly tested most brands of the infant milk to ensure they were free of harmful contaminants.

Endang’s call comes in response to a growing public outcry for the results of an earlier study to be made public.

The controversy stems from a study conducted between 2003 and 2006 by the Bogor Institute of Agriculture (IPB), which found that five out of 22 brands of formula milk it tested were contaminated with the potentially deadly Enterobacter sakazakii bacterium.

In high enough dosages, the bacteria is known to cause diarrhea and even meningitis in newborn babies. An untreated infection is often fatal.

Consumer advocate lawyer David M.L. Tobing then filed suit with the Supreme Court to get the Health Ministry and the BPOM to disclose the brands.

In April last year, the court ruled that the tainted brands be disclosed, but neither IPB, the BPOM nor the Health Ministry have complied.

Endang said the BPOM usually conducted its tests throughout the year, but with the mounting pressure from consumer groups, the ministry and BPOM would conduct the new tests all at once.

“We’ll immediately take samples from each brand and test them, because it’s impossible to test every single can available,” she said.

Endang also said that National Education Minister Muhammad Nuh had ordered IPB to re-conduct its study and publish the results within six months, with the Health Ministry footing the bill for the study.

“I hope we can have a discussion with IPB to ensure that we’re conducting our respective tests with similar methodologies, so there will be no [disputed] results,” the health minister said.

On Wednesday, Endang said at a hearing before the House of Representatives’ Commission IX, which oversees health affairs, that she was unable to comply with the Supreme Court’s ruling because her ministry was not privy to the study carried out by IPB.

“We really can’t reveal the brands of the allegedly tainted milk,” she said.

“What we can do is to calm the public by conducting another test to assure them that all baby formula milk currently in the market is safe from E. sakazakii,” she added.