health

Drug oversight criticized

Nearly two years after medicine tainted with diethylene glycol poisoned over 100 people, members of the Colegio de Farmacéuticos expressed growing concern over the government’s continued lax control of pharmaceutical drug imports and sales.

Jenny Vergara, representative for the Colegio, reported that after the mass poisoning in October 2006, the commission charged with investigating the incident proposed the creation of a special supervisory authority.

That suggestion, she explained, intended to establish an entity with greater economic independence than that currently enjoyed by the administration of the Farmacias y Drogas of the Ministerio de Salud (Minsa).

After the commission’s proposals were presented to health officials, Minsa director Rosario Turner called a meeting with Colegio members detailing that entity’s conclusions, many of which were significantly different, stymying the commission’s efforts to rectify the system.

Minsa’s proposals were in turn submitted to the Organización Panamericana de la Salud for consideration. According to the Ministerio Público’s latest figures, 208 people ingested the various medicines contaminated with diethylene glycol, an industrial coolant. Some 68 of those who survived have since been treated for kidney and neurological dysfunction.

Investigators have since traced the toxic shipment to a factory in China.