from: www.inquirer.net

EO 821 is deceitful and illusory

Philippine Daily Inquirer
First Posted 05:11:00 08/21/2009


Consumers will come to realize in the next few months that the prices of medicines will remain expensive despite the executive order on the maximum drug retail prices (MDRP) signed by President Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo last July 27, 2009.

Executive Order 821 is deceitful and illusory. It will not make the prices of medicines affordable to ordinary Filipinos.

EO 821 listed five medicines for compulsory compliance and 16 other essential medicines for voluntary compliance. These are medicines for hypertension
, diabetes, cancer, bacterial infections and amoebiasis. But the EO does not include the most widely used essential, first-line medicines needed for the treatment and cure of more prevalent diseases in the country. The medicines that should have been included are those needed to treat the 10 leading causes of morbidity and mortality which include respiratory diseases, pneumonia and tuberculosis, among other diseases.

In addition, EO 821 sets the MDRP of five medicines. Price regulation of medicines is a step in the right direction. However, in determining the drugs for compulsory MDRP, the peg is the drug originator price which, though slashed by 50 percent, is still expensive. For example, the MDRP of Amlodipine 10 mg (Amlodipine is used to lower blood pressure
) is P38.50, about half the price of its originator brand medicine Norvasc 10 mg, which is sold at P77 in a leading drug store. Why set an MDRP for this medicine at this amount when its generic equivalent is sold at P15 at a known drugstore
selling generic medicines?

In related developments, private hospitals threatened a hospital holiday in the light of the Aug. 15 deadline on implementing EO 821. At the end of the day, a hospital holiday will affect patients. Hence, the government must exhaust all means to settle the problem and spare the people another burden.

In the interest of the Filipinos, the list of medicines to be placed under the MDRP should include more essential medicines that are widely used. The MDRP should be pegged at prices that an ordinary worker can afford with his meager income. Government should promote and make available quality generic medicines as a viable alternative to expensive brand medicines.

The Filipinos have long waited for relief from the high medicine prices in the country. Unfortunately, the law failed in its promise to make essential medicines more affordable. The lack of sincere measures to regulate the prices of essential medicines is in effect an expression of collusion with big pharmaceutical companies.

—ELEANOR M. NOLASCO, RN,
convener,
Consumers’ Action for Empowerment,
chdmancom*yahoo.com