We all know that “orang pintar minum Tolak Angin” (clever people drink Tolak Angin), but would “orang California minum Tolak Angin”?
Not if the Tolak Angin package is slapped with a warning like in the photo above, which has gone viral recently. Apparently, the ginger herbal supplement is sold with a health warning in California as it may contain lead.
It’s odd because Tolak Angin has been sold in Indonesia for decades and there has never been such a complaint against the product.
“The [current] Tolak Angin product has passed the Toxic Test conducted by the Pharmaceutical Faculty at Sanata Dharma University in Yogyakarta in 2003,” said Irwan Hidayat, president director of PT Sido Muncul, the company that produces Tolak Angin, as quoted by Liputan 6 yesterday.
PT Sido Muncul wrote a complaint to the product’s distributor in the US, Empire International, back in July. They argued that such an unfounded warning could taint the product’s reputation in Indonesia and abroad.
The distributor admitted that they actually hadn’t done their research in putting up the health warning. They just slapped the warning as an “abundance of caution” as violating Prop 65 can incur severe penalties in California.
The distributor then began recalling Tolak Angin products labeled with Prop 65 warnings throughout the state. It’s unclear when Tolak Angin will be sold normally in California, but we hope it won’t be too long or California might just lose many of its “orang pintar”.
