‘No approved therapeutic claim’

By Herbert Vego

 

IN a previous column, I said that while I respect the right of others to receive an anti-COVID vaccine, I also have the right to reject it based on my belief that it is unnecessary to stay healthy.

No less than Dr. Anthony Leachon, former adviser of the National Task Force against COVID-19, had warned against prioritizing coronavirus vaccines from China in the absence of enough efficacy and safety data.

I agree. As the “birthplace” of coronavirus, China has no moral ascendancy to sell vaccines aimed at quelling the spread of the disease.

Instead of waiting for a vaccine, I have opted to boost my immune system during the past nine months that the print, broadcast and TV media have been scaring and stressing us with daily statistics on COVID-19 cases, I have never been sick in this period. How did I do it?

Aside from gorging on fruits, vegetables and other nutritious foods, I patronize food supplements – including those not yet approved by the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) – whenever I find them beneficial.

I also spoon-feed myself with a combination of crushed raw garlic and honey before going to bed at night. It’s a “natural antibiotic” suggested to me by my son Norbert, a nurse in New York City. Fresh garlic contains an amino acid called allicin, which reduces tissue inflammation.

It’s to sell food supplements that my friend, Engr. Cecille Contreras, decided to give up her job at the regional office of the Department of Public Works and Highways (DPWH).

Why do people like her thrive on multi-level marketing of tablets, capsules and health drinks which the FDA have not passed, hence labeled “no approved therapeutic claim”?

If they have no medicinal value, why do people patronize them as alternative medicine? Since I can vouch for their efficacy based on personal experience, others must have also frowned on the “no approved therapeutic” label stamped on products okayed by the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) as just food supplements.

We have heard victims of dengue swear having recovered after drinking boiled tawatawa leaves.

“I cannot recommend that,” a local doctor once said on cable TV. “No study proving its capacity to replenish blood platelets in dengue patients has been done.”

If so, then why has the FDA not initiated a study?

It must be because no pharmaceutical manufacturer has applied for tawatawa’s approval. Let us bear in mind that had a local company not submitted lagundi for DFA study and approval as cough medicine, it might have remained just a “food supplement”.

Malunggay in capsule form, reputedly anti-diabetes, has remained just a “food supplement” by FDA standard.

There was a time when I asked a distributor of an alleged “immune system booster” (a bottled herbal syrup) why his product is still labeled “no approved therapeutic claim.” Had he not sought FDA approval?

“Our company tried,” he lamented, “but we would have to shoulder the high cost of expensive and extensive laboratory tests and experiments to prove its medicinal value. We can’t afford the amount asked.”

In other words, only big multinational medicine producers can afford FDA’s nod. But as to whether an approved medicine can fulfill its “mission,” that always remains to be seen on a case-to-case basis.

There are doctors who recommend raw herbal products – such as garlic, akapulko, ampalaya, guava and lagundi – that have already been pronounced “medicinal” by the Department of Health. One of them is Dr. Jaime Galvez Tan, who used to be the secretary of said department. In his lectures, Dr. Galvez Tan often quotes the Greek father of medicine, Hippocrates (460-357 BC): “Let your food be your medicine.”

Hippocrates as a physician prescribed natural remedies to prevent and treat diseases. He might have heard about herbal practitioners who had preceded him. Despite the primitive means of transportation and communications during his time, herbal medicine as practiced in China for centuries had already gained global patronage. Today, such originally doubtful practices as acupuncture and reflexology remain part and parcel of modern Chinese medicine.

Today, we all know that vegetables and fruits strengthen the body’s built-in immune system, giving it the capacity to fight disease-causing bacteria and viruses.

No doubt, if a law could be passed requiring the FDA to exempt formulators of herbal medicine from spending too much for its approval, the locally-produced malunggay capsule would lose nothing but the label “no approved therapeutic claim.”

Here is where Mang Ambo, the herbolario, fits in.

 

-oOo-

 

MORE POWER’S CORPORATE SOCIAL RESPONSIBILITY

I am not surprised that MORE Electric and Power Corp’s President Roel Z. Castro personally delivered to Mayor Jerry Treñas a check for P50,000, representing the company’s donation for the consumables needed by Iloilo City’s molecular laboratory for COVID-19 testing.

Many other institutions have received a similar amount from MORE Power as part of its corporate social responsibility especially in the time of the COVID pandemic when, to quote Castro, “We have to care for each other in adapting to the world’s so-called New Normal.”

The other recipients are Asilo de Molo, Iloilo Festivals Foundation Inc, St. Paul University, Assumption Foundation, Beauty Behind Bars, Philippine Red Cross-Iloilo, Jaro Archdiocesan Social Action Center, Carmelite Monastery, Iloilo Two Hearts Foundation, and Colegio de San Jose.

Let us take note that MORE Power is mainly owned by industrialist Enrique K. Razon Jr., the third richest Filipino with a net asset of US $4.3 billion. He is the chairman of the board and president of International Container Terminal Services, Inc. (ICTSI), a Philippine-based company involved in the management and operation of 29 ports and terminals in 20 countries.

Mr. Razon belongs to the third generation of a family involved in the management and development of ports, terminals and related facilities in the past 90 years.