Kuwait Bans Melmac

Today on the front page of the Kuwait Times is the announcement of a ban by the Ministry of Commerce on selling any goods containing melamine, stating it was “based on information received from the Customs Department and office of the Secretary-General of the Gulf Cooperation Council, and has to do with melamine containing urea formaldehyde, which is banned” because it is “believed to be harmful to health.”

I was so curious, I had to Google “Melamine kitchenware + danger” because, to the best of my knowledge, Kuwait is now the only country in the entire world to ban melamine.

Melamine appeared in dog and cat food, and is believed to have been the cause of some early poisonings in the US, but as far as I can see, that came from insecticides, not from eating off melmac.

On the same front page is an article about hundreds of camels dropping dead in Saudi Arabia, also believed poisoned by a insecticide contaminated feed. Is there some relationship?

It isn’t an issue in our house; we don’t have melamine. But I have this irrational fondness for Melmac, because there used to be a show called Alf, about an alien that lived with an American family, and he was from the planet Melmac, which always cracked me up. I can’t imagine the generations of Americans – and others – who have eaten off Melmac dishes without any serious effects. How can this be? Is Melmac now formulated differently from before? Are Melmac plate users going to succumb to some serious problems because they ate off Melmac plates?

And why is Kuwait the only country in the world banning Melmac?