DOH OFFICIAL : GARIN, ET AL ‘PUSHED’ DENGVAXIA VAX

DOH OFFICIAL : GARIN, ET AL ‘PUSHED’ DENGVAXIA VAX

February 21, 2023 @ 2:07 AM 1 month ago


DEPARTMENT of Health (DoH)-Disease Control and Prevention Bureau project manager Dr. Clarito Cairo Jr. has named ex-Health secretary and now Iloilo Rep. Janette Garin and other ranking agency executives as the ‘decision makers’ who pushed for the anti-dengue vaccination using the banned Dengvaxia vaccine in 2016.

He was presented by Deputy Chief Prosecutor Irene Resurrecion-Medrano before Judge Lily Ann Marcos-Padaen of Branch 13, a family court, during last Thursday’s resumption of the trial in connection with the criminal cases filed by the families and relatives of the first batch of eight school children whose deaths were linked to Dengvaxia.

Resurrecion-Medrano, in one instance, asked Cairo as to who directed him as well as other DoH executives and personnel to carry out the mass vaccination that began in 2016, he then mentioned names of top department officials led by Garin being at the DoH helm at the time.

In his affidavit, Cairo said that the concerned DoH officials during Garin’s time had withheld from them about Dengvaxias’ four fatal serious adverse effects, namely, neurotropism, viscerotropism, severe dengue and anaphylaxis, which were disclosed by its manufacturer, French multinational pharmaceutical company Sanofi Pasteur, before the Food and Drug Administration.

Garin, the principal respondent in separate multiple criminal and civil cases filed against her and other accused including former Health secretary Francisco Duque 3rd, was arraigned last year but the court entered a ‘not guilty’ plea for her.

Garin, Duque and 37 others are separately facing criminal charges before the Department of Justice as well as civil charges filed before a QC court for the death of over 160 schoolchildren who were allegedly inoculated with the controversial anti-dengue vaccine.

Charges of reckless imprudence resulting to multiple homicide, violation of the Anti-Torture Law (Republic Act 9745), violation of the Consumer Act of the Philippines (R.A. 7394) and violation of the Philippine Pharmacy Act (R.A. 10918) were filed against her and her co-accused.

Aside from Garin and Duque, other respondents include Sanofi executives and vaccine distributor Zuellig Pharma, and officials of the Research Institute for Tropical Medicine, Philippine Children’s Medical Center (PCMC) and FDA.

The DoH, through PCMC, spent P3-billion for a mass vaccination of schoolchildren that started in 2016 against dengue.