On Affordable Medicine Act and the proposed 'generics only' prescribing

Reference : Dr. Julie Caguiat
c/o Community Medicine Development Foundation
Rm 610 6/F Dona Felisa Syjuco Bldg. Remedios cor Taft
Avenue, Manila
Mobile no. 0916-2358101, Tel. no. 567-0394

On Affordable Medicine Act and the proposed generics
prescribing of HB 2844
Position Paper Community Medicine Practitioners and
Advocates Association (COMPASS)

Having passed the Senate and Congress in separate
discussions, HB 2844 and SB 1658 or more popularly
known as the Affordable Medicine Act is but a stone
throw away from its passage.

We believe that the public should not be misled on the
issues that hound the Affordable Medicine Act prior to
its passage. While legislators and opinion-makers
debate on the provision that removes the doctor’s
prerogative of putting brand names aside from generic
names in their prescription, the matter must not be
interpreted as a doctor-versus-patient issue. Rather
it must be viewed as a strong public clamor for safe,
needed and efficacious medicine against the
government’s lack of decisive steps to ensure that the
majority of poor patients are given access to quality
and affordable medicines.

If any legislation that aims to provide accessible and
affordable medicine is to be meaningful to ordinary
Filipinos, then the real issues at hand are...creating
a National Drug Industry, protecting and giving
incentives to local drug manufacturers, and serious
implementation of the National Drug Policy (including
the Generics Act) and creating an accountable Drug
Price Regulatory Board. We at COMPASS believe that
unless these essential issues are enjoined with full
public participation, then the objective of addressing
a long-standing problem will again be missed.

The Generics Act of 1988 should seriously be
implemented by the government. Moreover, we believe
that the public should be well informed about the
Generics Law and Rational Drug Use (RDU) through
massive information campaigns and education drives.

COMPASS subscribes to the use of generic medicine. We
are for the use of safe and affordable generic
medicine that have gone through extensive research and
testing for efficacy. The prescription of what a
doctor believes is a potent drug for a certain
illness, the preference for specific drugs or
regimens, is borne of an earnest desire to heal and is
based on the physician’s commitment to the overall
well-being of his or her patient.

The existence and proliferation of substandard drugs
is a sad and undeniable reality in the Philippine
society. A more tragic reality is the continued
failure of government’s regulating agencies, the
Department of Health (DOH) and the Bureau of Food and
Drugs (BFAD), in regulating the quality and potency of
essential medicine. Proof of this is the continuous
proliferation of ineffective, substandard, and
potentially harmful drugs.

Until government strictly enforces its own regulations
and closely monitors the manufacture of essential
medicine, we cannot blame thousands of doctors and
patients if they continue to have preferences in their
choices medicine to use or prescribe. This can only be
done through nationalization of the drug industry,
where the government can have direct control over the
production and distribution of essential medicines for
Filipinos. Only then can safe and efficacious generic
medicine can be accessible to millions of marginalized
patients.

Signed:

Edelina de la Paz, MD Ramon Paterno, MD
Sylvia de la Paz, MD Julie P. Caguiat, MD