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THE
House of Representatives has forwarded to the Senate an
approved bill that would upgrade the capabilities of the
Bureau of Food and Drugs (Bfad) to ensure public health
and safety with respect to food, cosmetics and drugs
marketed in the Philippines.
Under
House Bill 3293, Bfad will be upgraded to Food and Drugs
Administration (FDA) and will be allowed to retain its
income for a period of five years to give the agency the
needed logistics and personnel complement.
Legislators said the bill is expected to ensure a more
effective implementation of its mandate to administer
and enforce the laws pertaining to safety and quality of
food, drugs, health products and cosmetics.
Speaker
Prospero Nograles said that the measure will give more
teeth to the Bfad, especially in the wake of complaints
against substandard medicines and food supplements.
The bill
seeks to amend Republic Act 3720, and shall be known as
the “Comprehensive Food, Drugs, Cosmetics, Devices and
Health Products Act of 2007.”
It
mandates the strengthening of the agency’s regulatory
capacity by establishing adequate testing laboratories
and field offices, upgrade the agency’s equipment,
augment its human resource component and, foremost,
gives it the authority to retain its income to carry out
its vital mandate.
Lakas
Rep. Ferjenel Biron of Iloilo and Nationalist People’s
Coalition Rep. Arthur Pingoy of South Cotabato, chairman
of the House Committee on Health, both physicians by
profession, noted that in a policy review and program
implementation of the generics law, which was envisioned
to benefit the people with safe, effective, affordable
and accessible medicines, two of the five component
pillars and strategies of implementing the law were
greatly affected because of the “lack of administrative
and technical capability of the current Bfad to
effectively perform its regulatory functions of
licensing, registration and monitoring.”
Lakas
Rep. Phillip Pichay of Surigao del Sur, who has earlier
voiced his doubt that the proposed Cheaper Medicines Act
of 2008 now awaiting final action by the President would
result in cheaper and quality medicines for the poor,
said the proposed measure addresses the most crucial
concern about the FDA’s capability to perform
bioavailability and bioequivalence tests, often raised
by multinational companies through the Pharmaceutical
Healthcare Association of the Philippines and the
Philippine Medical Association as this aspect
contributes to the perception of poor quality of generic
products.
“It is
the duty of Congress to set policies that would protect
the health and safety of the people,” said Pichay.
He added
that the proposed FDA needs to hire more competent
employees to augment its present personnel complement
and its additional offices or agencies to be created
nationwide under the proposed upgrading of the agency.
Meanwhile, Pingoy said that the PMA has been relentless
in challenging the Bfad to provide it with scientific
data such as what these tests can yield to prove that
generic drugs are as safe and as potent as the tested
brands and products that they are using. |
