18 October 2005
EDITORIAL: Again, name names now, BFAD!
About time our authorities decided to ferret out the real score, that is, the identities of doctors put under the cloud of suspicion – let’s stress that: suspicion – by the discovery of a so-called “blue book” from some arrested couriers of counterfeit drugs listing the names of some prominent local doctors as their clients or contacts.
Over a month since this newspaper sought disclosure of the names of these doctors supposedly patronizing counterfeit drugs to be sold to their unwary patients, the government agency most concerned with the on-going investigation into this mess, the Bureau of Food and Drugs (BFAD) has sealed its lips. The longer it does, the more the faceless patients out there risk being prescribed by their “trusted” doctors medicines the effectiveness of which are at best doubtful, if not totally zero. BFAD, through its point man in the case, Dr. Reynaldo Jacinto of its enforcement unit, has been defending its intransigence by saying it is not quite eager to face libel suits for such disclosures.
It is good the provincial board through its health committee chair, Dionisio “Saffe” Villar last week sent out the word it won’t hear of such nonsense and would want Jacinto and his agency to bare the names of the doctor-patrons or risk (probably) being cited in contempt. This, of course, may still be done in executive session to allay the fear of Jacinto and Company about being sued. The Provincial Administrator, Virgilio Solis, a lawyer himself, has joined the clamor for disclosure saying BFAD should now “name names” for a better management of the potentially damaging neither-here-nor-there tact being taken by the bureau and subsequently enforce discipline and sanctions on erring practitioners where these are needed.
The request for name disclosure gains more importance now with the reports, fed piecemeal by BFAD itself to some media sources, unofficially of course, that the food and drugs bureau had been referring all along to doctors in government hospitals as being the counterfeiters’ “secret partners” in the promotion of their illicit products. This immediately casts the shade of suspicion on all physicians in the public hire and makes BFAD party to the undermining of the very health department to which it owes allegiance.
At some point, Jacinto has to decide whether protecting the reputation of the concerned and suspected physicians is more paramount than protecting the general health welfare on unsuspecting patients as well as the names of his fellow doctors now unfairly tainted by his playing the local version of Norberto Gonzales in the Venable PR contract imbroglio.
Come off it now, BFAD. If these disciples of Hippocrates were willing enough to be a party to a crime, they should be man (or woman?) enough to face the consequences of disclosure.
Over a month since this newspaper sought disclosure of the names of these doctors supposedly patronizing counterfeit drugs to be sold to their unwary patients, the government agency most concerned with the on-going investigation into this mess, the Bureau of Food and Drugs (BFAD) has sealed its lips. The longer it does, the more the faceless patients out there risk being prescribed by their “trusted” doctors medicines the effectiveness of which are at best doubtful, if not totally zero. BFAD, through its point man in the case, Dr. Reynaldo Jacinto of its enforcement unit, has been defending its intransigence by saying it is not quite eager to face libel suits for such disclosures.
It is good the provincial board through its health committee chair, Dionisio “Saffe” Villar last week sent out the word it won’t hear of such nonsense and would want Jacinto and his agency to bare the names of the doctor-patrons or risk (probably) being cited in contempt. This, of course, may still be done in executive session to allay the fear of Jacinto and Company about being sued. The Provincial Administrator, Virgilio Solis, a lawyer himself, has joined the clamor for disclosure saying BFAD should now “name names” for a better management of the potentially damaging neither-here-nor-there tact being taken by the bureau and subsequently enforce discipline and sanctions on erring practitioners where these are needed.
The request for name disclosure gains more importance now with the reports, fed piecemeal by BFAD itself to some media sources, unofficially of course, that the food and drugs bureau had been referring all along to doctors in government hospitals as being the counterfeiters’ “secret partners” in the promotion of their illicit products. This immediately casts the shade of suspicion on all physicians in the public hire and makes BFAD party to the undermining of the very health department to which it owes allegiance.
At some point, Jacinto has to decide whether protecting the reputation of the concerned and suspected physicians is more paramount than protecting the general health welfare on unsuspecting patients as well as the names of his fellow doctors now unfairly tainted by his playing the local version of Norberto Gonzales in the Venable PR contract imbroglio.
Come off it now, BFAD. If these disciples of Hippocrates were willing enough to be a party to a crime, they should be man (or woman?) enough to face the consequences of disclosure.
