Parents insist before DOJ: Dengvaxia caused our children’s deaths

Parents of children whose deaths were linked to the anti-dengue vaccine Dengvaxia insisted on Wednesday before the Department of Justice (DOJ) that the controversial drug caused their children’s untimely demise.

In a required filing before the DOJ, the parents, complainants behind nine sets of criminal charges against ranking Health officials, refuted former Health Secretary Janette Garin’s claim that there was no conclusive connection between the vaccine and the deaths.

“How can she say that the Dengvaxia vaccine is safe for humans when our children who were once healthy children died after receiving the Dengvaxia vaccine?” the complainants said in their 29-page reply-affidavit.

Results of a forensic examination by a team from Public Attorney’s Office (PAO), who examined the children, indicators that validate the “risks” of Dengvaxia, supposedly prior to a disclosure by manufacturer Sanofi Pasteur, the complainants said..

These “risks” were “allergic/anaphylactic reaction, viscerotropism and neurotropism, increase in severity of dengue disease from the start of vaccination and waning protection against dengue disease over time,” the parents, assisted by the PAO, claimed.

In seeking dismissal of the charges against her, Garin noted that a causality between the “recklessly imprudent acts” and the material damage has not been established.

“The absence of the dengue viral material in the patient’s body absolutely eliminates any possible relation between dengue vaccine and the patient,” she said in her counter-affidavit in an earlier filing.

Unconvinced, the complainants claimed it was a “blatant self-serving allegation” and that it was more “fitting” to say that administering the vaccine was the “most plausible explanation” for the serious illness and eventual deaths of their healthy children.

“The foregoing findings readily show the connection of the Dengvaxia vaccine to the death of our children. Our children died, without any prior history of an illness, as early as eleven (11) days and up to eight (8) months after vaccination of the last dose of Dengvaxia vaccine.” they parents said.

They asserted that the Department of Health did not disclose the risks earlier identified by Sanofi. Some of them, they said, did not even know their children had received Dengvaxia shots.

“Had we been informed of the said possible risks, not in the world have we given our consent to the vaccination of our children, even if the same was given for free,” they said.

The complainants are Ramil Pestilos and Liza Makilan, Ian Colite, Almer Bautista, Elena Baldonado, Ariel Hedia, Darwin and Merlyn Bataan, Jeffrey Alimagno,  Zander Jaime and Annalyn Almoguerra, and Lauro and Analyn Eboña.

The reply-affidavit is a step closer to revolving their complaint of reckless imprudence resulting in homicide and violation of the Anti-Torture Act against Garin, other former and incumbent officials of the DOH, and officers and directors of Sanofi and local distributor Zuellig Pharma. —VDS, GMA News