On Jan. 2, 2025, I started the year leading a discipleship group at our favorite Starbucks branch. After feeding ourselves with all the holiday delights, it only seemed right that we nourished our souls with fellowship, lessons and Bible verses.
Instead of a warm-up question, one member asked where things were regarding dengue and the vaccine that they had heard about.
I casually replied that the cases piled up in 2024 but the DOH downplayed an “outbreak” and a new count will surely begin in 2025. As for the dengue vaccine, it continues to languish in the bureaucratic dungeons of the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) for 18 months, where it underwent a review from a panel of experts and inexplicably has reportedly been passed on to another group for even more review.
My friend shook his head in dismay and shared that last Christmas, the 11-year-old nephew of his boss landed in the hospital on Christmas Day with dengue and died on Dec. 26 after attempts to resuscitate the boy failed. Not only was the death so swift and tragic but also shocking, because as the ER team attempted to resuscitate the boy, blood oozed from his nose, etc.
While all of that was going on, the Department of Health was busy counting down the number of individuals who lost fingers or sustained burns as a result of illegally lighting up firecrackers. Reporting stats and limp wristed appeals not to use firecrackers will never match the work and legacy of the incomparable secretary/senator Juan Flavier.
Juan Flavier was authentic in his many campaigns against firecrackers, anti-smoking, etc. He eventually became senator because he first did the work, was down to earth, authentic and well-liked. Those who aspire to follow in his footsteps have their work cut out for them.
Aside from the anti-firecracker campaign that was too little-too late, what I found strange was the efforts that the DOH put into monitoring and reporting the number of vehicular accidents. That belongs to the MMDA and the PNP, not the DOH. If the DOH was trying to send out the message against drunk driving, well sorry, they failed. The “kamotes” went drinking and driving anyway.
Such campaigns should start at the beginning of October, if not January, if they really want to imprint the message that “drinking and driving don’t mix.” Aside from an early start, they should have put their money where their mouth was, as in spending on a real campaign and not lip service or because “it’s the season.”
As far as dengue is concerned, what has the secretary of health actually done to oversee the ongoing reviews conducted by the Food and Drug Administration? Talking heads of the FDA boast of a “new FDA” with political will, an FDA with a brand spanking new building. But they are still the slow pokes in their process of approval for a vaccine that is already approved and in widespread use in Thailand, Indonesia, Vietnam, Brazil, etc.
At the very least, both Secretary Herbosa and Director General Zacate should establish a policy of transparency and goal setting for all “clients” and products under review of the FDA. I accept that the FDA must be insulated from any form of pressure or influence that may taint their process and decisions.
However, that insulation should not be a cloak of invisibility that prevents clients and the general public from knowing the status of the FDA’s work. Clients like patients need to know what’s going on with their applications.
The “cloak of invisibility” should not be an incentive for the FDA to take their time while vaccines or cancer meds sit in front of evaluators or officials who do not have the same urgency that sick patients and their physicians experience.
Integrity is not only about protecting the work, but it is also about doing your work well, on time, with transparency and not at the cost of peoples’ lives.
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On the morning I learned about the dengue related death, I also learned from one of our church leaders that his daughter had “end stage renal failure” and required dialysis three times a week. By now her only hope is a miracle or a kidney transplant, or she could be dead before the year ends.
But under the present circumstances, you have a greater chance of hitting the Lotto than getting a quick donor and procedure because of all the illegal organ sale/donations that have happened. The law and institutions such as the National Kidney Transplant Institute have really tightened the screws on the commercialization of organs. But there is a lot of collateral damage: the people who are badly in need of a kidney.
Part of the problem is the DOH, DepEd, NKTI have not managed to institutionalize the education of Filipinos regarding kidney care from crib to grave. We treat symptoms but don’t prevent ultimate organ failure or dialysis. In spite of the unusually high number of dialysis patients and centers, no official has declared that we have a health crisis. We have very limited knowledge about kidney transplantation, organ donation and outcomes and post-donation quality of life of donors.
We are all focused against commercialization but refuse to acknowledge the undeniable fact that without an organ, donated or otherwise, people will die. We live in a hypocritical society where rich friends have had kidney transplants from their driver, factory worker or long-lost relative in the province.
Regulation, rationalization and resolution is what is needed to save lives. We cannot merely follow solutions of societies that do not have our shared values, not to mention the oath of physicians to do no harm and to save lives. Follow the Hippocratic oath, not the Hypocritic solution.
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