EDITORIAL - Blame for Dengvaxia goes all the way up

The Department of Health is alarmed by the spreading fear in the public against the government's other vaccination programs as a result of the Dengvaxia mess. And whose fault is it that the public would feel this way? The way the DOH talks, it is as if it does not share the blame with Dengvaxia manufacturer Sanofi Pasteur for what could be the country's worst medical and health crisis.

The DOH, or at least some of its highest officials, were there at the very inception of the Dengvaxia controversy. They were complicit in the introduction of Dengvaxia into the public health system despite the lack or absence of any significant material evidence to suggest it was safe to publicly introduce the drug at the time they did.

It is truly disturbing, to say the least, how supposedly professional people with an overwhelming mandate to protect the general public, could have decided to go along with the Dengvaxia introduction despite the lack of any safety assurances. From what has been gathered so far in the different public investigations made into the mess, it would appear that none of the regular and standard questions were asked.

Or if they were asked, they were done so perfunctorily, without any thought or regard for what the answer might be. Had these DOH officials been consumed by the overwhelming need to look out for the best interests of the Filipino public, the standard questions and the revealing answers might have raised the red flags that seemed so lacking when the Dengvaxia deal was struck.

But why were the usual safeguards not deemed vitally important when they should have, considering that Dengvaxia was a new drug, probably the very first to deal with a menace that has been crippling the tropical populations of the world, especially very young children. What was the compelling reason for this very drastic and dramatic oversight?

On the other hand, it is truly unthinkable for health officials to turn their backs on their sworn oaths just like that. Unless they were just following orders from a very much higher authority, Based on what has been revealed in the hearings and other reports, the Dengvaxia crisis goes all the way to the top. If the marching orders came from above, only then can it be accepted that perhaps the DOH had simply been left with no choice.