"Everyone is to blame."
- DR. CELIA CARLOS, head of the Antimicrobial Resistance
Surveillance Program, on the alarming
rate of antibiotic resistance
"More than 10 million children die every year throughout the world. Two-thirds of the causes of death are preventable. The Philippines is one of the six countries that contribute to 75 percent of all deaths among our under-five children in the Western Pacific region with 82,000 deaths per year."
- DR. YOLANDA OLIVEROS, director, National Center for Disease Control,
Department of Health, at the Curing Poverty
through Vaccination seminar
"If we had the luxury of money, we still have to identify the diseases, age groups, and then we will go for the combination vaccines over monovalent vaccines because this will save us the cost of syringes and spare the patients additional discomfort."
- DR. JOYCE DUCUSIN, director, National
Immunization Program, Department of Health
"Patients go to their physicians with full confidence that they marshal their medical education, skill, and experience in providing the best treatment for a given set of clinical circumstance. The patient-doctor relationship is sacred and cannot be undermined by legislation."
- THE PHILIPPINE COLLEGE OF PHYSICIANS, in an official
statement on the Cheaper Medicines Bill
"The President's power to impose price ceilings is already found in the Price Act, and what we're doing is clarifying that such authority can be used for health emergencies, including ailments such as diabetes, which affects well over 10 percent of Filipinos."
- SENATOR MAR ROXAS, author of Senate Bill 1658 (Cheaper Medicines bill)
"In the oil industry, it's okay to have a regulatory board, but in the drug industry it's not needed because the prices of these medicines in other countries can now be applied to us once this parallel importation of patented products is allowed."
- DR. ALEX PADILLA, undersecretary, Department of Health
"Vaccination remains to be the best investment in public health."
- DR. ERIC TAYAG, president, of the Philippine Foundation for Vaccination
"Determination of price ceilings for drugs and medicines … may pose additional burdens to our already overburdened government agencies … and give bureaucrats the power to make decisions that should be made only by qualified medical practitioners."
- PHARMACEUTICAL AND HEALTHCARE ASSOCIATION OF THE PHILIPPINES,
in an official statement on the Cheaper Medicines Bill
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