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Despite years of frustration, lawyer David Tobing said on Thursday that he would never stop fighting for the release of the names of a group of infant formula milk brands contaminated with bacteria.

“I will fight within all the available legal channels as best as I can until the end, even though, honestly, I am already desperate and almost at the point of giving up,” Tobing said.

He said he was disappointed that the Health Ministry, the Food and Drug Monitoring Agency (BPOM) and the Bogor Institute of Agriculture (IPB) had refused to release the names of the brands, despite a Supreme Court ruling ordering them to do so.

“The public needs to know,” he said. “The study carried out by IPB between 2003 and 2006 has caused unease in society because so many people have young children, just like I do.”

The controversy began in 2008 when media reported that the IPB had tested 22 brands of powdered formula and found that five were contaminated with Enterobacter sakazakii, a bacteria, that can cause illnesses in infants with weak immune systems.

An untreated infection can be fatal, but such cases are rare. According to the BPOM, there have been only 42 cases of infant sickness resulting from milk contamination in Indonesia in the past 48 years.

Health Minister Endang Rahayu Sedyaningsih has said the Enterobacter sakazakii bacterium dies when milk is heated to 70 degrees Celsius.

The IPB team has cited academic freedom for refusing to release the study results. Backed by other prominent research universities, it has argued that it is not a government regulator and that it would be unethical and damaging to scientific development to disclose any information that could harm or disadvantage the subjects of scientific research.

The Supreme Court, however, sided with Tobing and ruled in April last year that the names of the tainted brands be disclosed. So far, IPB, BPOM and the ministry have refused to comply.

“They could be punished with more than five years in jail for public lies,” Tobing said.

Ahmad Alamsyah Saragih, chairman of the Public Information Commission (KIP), backed Tobing, saying academic freedom was not a valid excuse when it came to matters of public concern.

Maruarar Siahaan, a former Constitutional Court judge, said the health minister could face jail and should resign for refusing to uphold the law.