Kota Kinabalu: The evidence produced by a consumer on the possible melting of plastic straws in oil when frying bananas for long-lasting crispiness should place the Health Ministry on high alert. "If true that this is happening in Sabah, then it must also be happening throughout Malaysia. What must be established is whether this is the practice by one particular group of people frying these products in Sabah or is practised by most," said Dr Anil Kumar Kukreja, the former Acting Deputy Director of the Queen Elizabeth Hospital, here.
When told that the Health Department had taken samples of the cooking oil from the stall in question at Wawasan Plaza on Tuesday for laboratory tests, Dr Anil said that was not good enough because it may be fresh oil seized after awareness had been created by the report.
"I would have expected the Department's officials to have collected the sample of the customer that is in the possession of Daily Express because that is the evidence they need for the tests.
"Then, the customer can also proceed with litigation to serve as a warning to all food pedlars not to take consumer's health for granted in the pursuit of profits," he said.
Drawing a parallel with the melamine-in-milk scare in China where that nation took a serious view of the problem so as to send a stern warning, he said: "That should be the attitude when it comes to safeguarding public health."
Cosmopoint College principal Grace Chang Sim Vui, 32, brought the sample to the Daily Express office on Monday, after buying them from the stall at the shopping mall which is frequented by her students.
Dr Anil, who is now into private practice, said banana fritters fried with plastic straws to keep them crunchy for long hours can potentially cause cancer over the long term.
Although there is no case or medical study to support such adverse health effects, he said, what is clear is that "basically, plastic material cannot be digested by the human body and also cannot be broken.
"Thus, the plastic element will remain in the body.
"When this happens, the consumers can get cancer but not in a short time.
Most likely, they could get stomach diseases or colon cancer after long-term consumption."
According to Dr Anil, plastic materials cooked together with food including banana fritters at high temperatures may not be visible to the human eye and, thus, difficult to detect.
Another general practitioner in Likas, Dr Mohd Mustafa Kather Seeni, concurred with Dr Anil, saying food fried with plastic material can cause health problems, particularly to the stomach.
"I have heard about such ways of cooking when it comes to cooking banana fritters but I had yet to come across such evidence until the Daily Express reported it.
"There is a possibility that consuming such food will affect the small intestines and lacerate the intestinal wall.
"Although there is no proven study that such food can cause cancer, there is a possibility that consumers can suffer from such serious diseases in the long run," Dr Mohd Mustafa said.
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