SENATE President Aquilino Pimentel III has filed a bill seeking to transfer to Congress from the Health secretary the power to choose the vaccines to be included in the government’s basic immunization program.
“The danger of relying on the wisdom of one individual on a matter as vital as the health of our children has been made painfully clear to us all,” stressed Pimentel.
The Senate leader was obviously referring to the anti-dengue Dengvaxia vaccination which has endangered the lives of over 800,000 children.
“For the sake of our children—and the sake of our health officials, too—the responsibility of deciding what vaccines our children are required to receive should not be borne by one person alone,” he said.
In the light of the ongoing controversy over the anti-dengue vaccine, Pimentel said it had become clear that the Health secretary had the power to “overrule reservations of other experts as regards what other vaccines should be administered to our children.”
“Hence, this bill proposes to repeal the secretary of Health’s power to include vaccines in the mandatory basic immunization program.”
He stressed that any proposal to add other types of vaccines to those enumerated in the law must be made before Congress, which should amend the law if it agreed the proposed addition was necessary.
Pimentel’s proposal was contained in Senate Bill No. 1743 that seeks to amend Republic Act No. 10152 or the “Mandatory Infants and Children Heath Immunization Act of 2011.”
He said the law was enacted to address the then-growing number of newborns and children infected with the Hepatitis-B virus.
Aside from Hepatitis-B, the law also mandates immunization for other seven diseases like tuberculosis, tetanus, measles and mumps.
“The law also gave unfettered discretion to the Secretary of Health to determine such other types of vaccines that may be included in the mandatory basic immunization program,” he added.
“It is this latter feature of the law that this bill seeks to address,” he said in the explanatory note of his bill.