Affordable should not mean unsafe

It is often said that health is wealth, but you need wealth to stay healthy in this country. Government hospitals are overcrowded. Private hospitals turn patients away unless they can make a deposit. Only a handful of hospitals offer world-class treatment. The country's blood supply is not 100 percent safe. Certain treatments such as dialysis, heart bypass surgery and chemotherapy are beyond the reach of the poor. Drugs and other pharmaceutical products are expensive. And even if you can afford your medicine, it might be fake or adulterated.

The Pharmaceutical Health Care Association of the Philippines warned the other day that at least 30 percent of drugs in the market are adulterated or fake. It won't be too bad if consu-mers end up paying a fortune for a placebo containing sugar and starch. Fake drugs, however, can sometimes have dire consequences. An official of the health care association said an infant died after being injected with a fake medicine, while adulterated antibiotics led to the amputation of an elderly man's feet.

The problem is expected to get worse once the government allows the entry of unregistered drugs -- a move aimed to offer the public more affordable medicine. The unregistered drugs will have to be subjected to laboratory tests to guide the public on the products' efficacy and safety as well as guarantee that consumers will not be buying mere placebos. Even an expert cannot distinguish the genuine article from the fake without a laboratory test, the health care association emphasized. Health officials should also mount an information campaign to advise consumers on which unre-gistered drugs are safe and effective.

Several measures are being pursued by the government to bring down the cost of medicine, including the promotion of generic drugs. Bringing in unregistered drugs may help, but it will also require greater vigilance on the part of the Department of Health. DOH officials said yesterday that about 20 percent of unregistered drugs may be fake or adulte-rated. The officials reassured the public that health personnel are watching out for these drugs. People will end up paying more for health care when they buy drugs that lack efficacy. Affordable should not mean unsafe and ineffective. Cheap should not mean deadly.