A doctor who has been with the Department of Health since 1994 has agreed to testify in a Senate hearing into the dengue vaccine procurement controversy on Monday, the Volunteers Against Crime and Corruption said.
In a forum in Quezon City on Saturday, VACC legal counsel Atty. Ferdinand Topacio said the doctor, whom he refused to identify, will be a “treasure trove” of information on the issue when the anti-crime group presents the physician before the Senate committee on health and demography chaired by Senator JV Ejercito.
Topacio also reiterated the names of 11 other officials of the Health department who are supposedly involved in the government’s P3.5-billion deal to buy and distribute the Dengvaxia vaccine made by French pharmaceutical giant Sanofi Pasteur as the centerpiece of its dengue immunization program.
The development comes a day after former Health secretary Dr. Janette Garin admitted to meeting with officials of Sanofi Pasteur in Paris in 2015 to discuss the controversial vaccine.
The lawyer said the doctor had approached the VACC as early as last March, and then again in June, saying he had information on the dengue vaccine mess. The anti-crime group had checked the background and testimony of the doctor, Topacio added.
“We checked [him] out, he is what he said he was. After validating [his information], we brought it to the DOJ [Department of Justice] for investigation, but at that time it ran into dead ends because of conflicting testimonies, and contentious issues,” he said.
The VACC was tipped off about the truth of the doctor’s information when Sanofi itself admitted that the vaccine could cause adverse effects if administered to a child who has not yet contracted dengue, Topacio added.
He also named six present and former DOH undersecretaries who were involved in evaluating, procuring and administering Dengvaxia: Boy Gako, Vicente Belisario, Kenneth Hartigan-Go, Lilibeth David Gerry Bayugo and Carol Taino.
Topacio also named DOH Assistant Secretary Lyndon Lee Suy; Joyce Ducusin, officer-in-charge of the Expanded Program on Immunization; DOH Region IV director Rio Magpantay; DOH NCR director Ariel Valencia; and Philippine Children’s Medical Center executive director Julius Lecciones as part of the group of officials who would be implicated by the VACC doctor-witness.
The lawyer said he sent their names to Health Secretary Francisco Duque III in a bid to prevent these officials from being named to a task force the DOH is forming to investigate the issue.
“We warned Duque that he might make the mistake of naming these persons involved to the task force. It would ruin the credibility of the DOH if he did so, and embarrass them because these people will be mentioned on Monday,” Topacio said.
Duque, in a previous radio interview, said he has named Health Undersecretary Herminigildo Valle, head of the Office for Field Implementation and Management; Undersecretary Mario Villaverde, head of the Office for Health Regulation; Undersecretary Roger Tong-an, head of the Office for Health Service Development; and Undersecretary Eric Domingo to the task force.
The task force will also review the dengue immunization program, which has seen 830,000 public school students receive Dengvaxia in Metro Manila, Central Luzon, Calabarzon, and Cebu province but has since been stopped following Sanofi’s advisory.
Topacio alleged that Hartigan-Go, who was also once director-general of the Food and Drug Administration, became a top official of Zuellig Pharmaceutical—the distributor of Dengvaxia in the Philippines—after his retirement from the government regulatory arm.
“So there is a clear conflict of interest here. He facilitated FDA approval [for the vaccine] and he also gave it an exemption because it was not on the list of vaccines the government can legally procure,” said the lawyer, who also cited Bayugo and Lee Suy for “downplaying” the ill effects of the vaccine.
In a separate interview over dzBB radio, Lee Suy said he was open to any inquiry on the controversy, noting he was a “mere spokesperson” of the Health department for the immunization program.
“It was my responsibility to disseminate information on the program, including activities related not just to the dengue vaccine but on DOH activities as a whole,” he said.
The VACC and its doctor-witness also has to prove his involvement in procuring and evaluating Dengvaxia, Lee Suy added.
“Even I was surprised by my involvement in this issue. I guess that’s what happens—if you speak out, you will be part of the study or investigation, when I was just doing my job,” he added.