BFAD HEAD ASKED TO CLARIFY REPORT ON RECALL OF
RESPIRATORY DRUGS IN US

Senate Minority Leader Aquilino Q. Pimentel, Jr. (PDP-Laban) today requested food and drug authorities to clarify a report that the Food and Drug Administration of the United States has issued an advisory recalling a number of commonly used drugs for respiratory ailments due to their harmful side effects on women and children.

In a letter to Director Leticia Barbara Gutierrez of the Bureau of Food and Drugs (BFAD) dated Feb. 5, Pimentel said:

"Please inform me if it is true that FDA (US) has issued an advisory recalling drugs containing phenylpropanolamine for alleged linkage to increased hemorrhagic stroke (bleeding brain) among women aged 18-49 and seizures in children."

Pimentel told Director Gutierrez the FDA-US recall order supposedly includes certain drugs that can be bought over the counter, such as alkaseltzer, dimetapp, robitussin, dexatrim, bioflu, neozep, sinutab and decolgen.

"If this is true, then I suppose your office must also do likewise, if you haven't done so yet," Pimentel told the BFAD director.

Pimentel said he heard Director Gutierrez say, during a broadcast interview, that her office has called up the pharmaceutical companies concerned and the latter supposedly responded by saying that they will "reformulate" the drugs concerned to remove the unsafe ingredients.

He said if these drugs are indeed dangerous to human health, the BFAD should take immediate action by ordering the pharmaceutical firms concerned to recall them from the drugstores.

"If there is truth to the report that these drugs can have harmful effects on human health, they should be recalled and banned immediately. The public should be informed that these drugs are banned. And whoever insists on selling them can be slapped with cases. The people should be warned immediately about this thing."

Pimentel said he will submit a copy of his letter to the Senate committee on health "in the hope that they can take action on it on their own."