Press Release
October 8, 2008

Loren backs calls for BFAD strengthening

"We are what we eat."

That was rather a seemingly forgotten maxim spoken in ancient times by Ayurveda - an ancient Indian Science of Life - to warn people then to be extra cautious in what they ate and drank.

This maxim has valid reason to be uttered once again in these modern times when everybody is threatened by the harmful effects of milk and milk products now found to have been contaminated with dangerous substance called melamine.

"As globalization intensifies, as we engage in trade with other countries more and more, as we subsist in food that undergoes more processes and stages of preparation before we consume them, as knowledge, and researches on health advance, there is all the more need for us to be wary for what we take in. We are what we eat," said Senator Loren Legarda.

Legarda, chair of the Senate Committee on Economic Affairs, yesterday made the statement as she filed her co-sponsorship of a senate bill calling for the strengthening of the regulatory capacity of the Bureau of Food and Drugs (BFAD) as a result of the serious threat posed by contaminated milk and milk products from China.

Legarda cited a report in which melamine was said to have caused 53,000 infants ill, 12,900 hospitalized, and four infants dead in China as of September 22, 2008. A number of survivors were diagnosed with acute kidney failure.

Melamine is used to make fertilizers and is unethically added to food products in order to increase protein content that came out of this unfortunate event.

While awaiting committee report, Legarda said the bill seeks to broaden the scope of the BFAD regulatory power not only on food and drugs, but also on cosmetics, while renaming BFAD into Foods, Drugs, Cosmetics and devices Administration (FDCDA).

According to Legarda principal author of Senate Bill 2645, adequate testing laboratories and field offices will be established and their human resource complement will be upgraded, to keep pace with the challenges of times.

"I have envisioned a more vigilant regulatory body that will support and improve the protection and promotion of the right to health of the Filipino people," Legarda said, adding that the FDCDA will undertake appropriate health manpower development and research that are responsive to the country's health needs and problems.

She explained that the regulatory capacity of the now-existing BFAD will be enhanced and strengthened to ensure a more effective inspection, licensing, and monitoring of food and drugs.

The leaps and bounds of development in food and health since the founding of the Bureau of Food and Drugs as well as the unprecedented integration of the world economy through increased flow of trade in recent years call for a food and drug regulatory system that has the attributes of the FDCDA which this bill seeks to create, she said.

"Regulation will not stop with food and drugs. Also to be regulated are labels and devices, medical, radiation, and all the other health-related devices," she said.

Part of strengthening, Legarda added, is imposing penalties, actions and remedies for violations of rules and regulations to make sure that adulterated, counterfeited, misbranded, or unregistered products, in short, dangerous products are off our supermarket and pharmacy shelves.

"Whether intentional or due to negligence, endangering the health of the citizenry is a serious matter such that the State needs to interfere with its police powers. Law violators will be meted with criminal and administrative actions," she said.

The FDCDA will receive complaints on products and will order the ban and the recall of such products, after reasonable investigation on the merits of the complaints. It will strengthen the post-market surveillance system, meaning FDCDA will continue monitoring and regulating food and health products even after its production or even when the end products are already on the shelves in stores and markets.

The Philippines imports most of its needs for dairy products from New Zealand and Australia.

"We could have been up in the neck in detecting these brands and recalling them from the markets."

"Even Japan and Taiwan, which have a well-regulated food and drug markets, have reported incidents of melamine contamination."

Under the FDCDA, centers will be created for every major product category. The bill, which complements the Cheaper Medicines Law, will also seek to create the Center for Food Regulation and Research to regulate the importation and sale of milk products.

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