DOH staff must not be allowed to ‘moonlight’ with pharma firms, solon says

A lawmaker on Sunday said allowing its experts to moonlight with pharmaceutical companies brings corruption into the Department of Health (DOH).

"This practice of allowing DOH specialists to moonlight and have second jobs with pharmaceutical companies is unethical because it tends to corrupt the department, including the approval of new drug applications," Surigao del Sur Representative Johnny Pimentel said.

Pimentel's statement was based on findings during the House inquiry into the Dengvaxia vaccine controversy that Dr. Ma. Rosario Capiding, chief of the microbiology department at the DOH's Research Institute for Tropical Medicine (RITM), received P40,000 in monthly compensation from the vaccines division of French pharmaceutical company Sanofi Pasteur.

She was the principal investigator who conducted a study on Dengvaxia under a grant from Sanofi.

Pimentel, chairman of the House good government and public accountability committee, said the RITM and its personnel should not be allowed to conduct clinical studies and trials for and on behalf of pharmaceutical firms.

"The institute should be performing studies on its own on potential new vaccines or pharmaceutical agents. All its activities should be funded by the Philippine government alone, or by grants from disinterested parties," Pimentel said.

Capiding defended receiving compensation from the Dengvaxia maker by invoking Executive Order No. 674 issued by late President Ferdinand Marcos, which supposedly allows her to receive compensation from grants.

Pimentel said the "bad provisions" of the Marcos era executive order have been considered "automatically repealed" by the Code of Conduct and Ethical Standards for Public Officials and Employees of 1989 or Republic Act 6713.

The DOH stopped the government’s dengue immunization program in December 2017 following a Sanofi Pasteur advisory that the use of Dengvaxia must be strictly limited after studies had shown that it can worsen the disease in people who have not previously been exposed to dengue.

More than 830,000 children from public schools in Metro Manila, Central Luzon, Calabarzon, and Cebu were administered with Dengvaxia since it was launched in April 2016. —Anna Felicia Bajo/ALG, GMA News